


A Duchess in Disfavour

by Lara_Morgenstern, Merenili



Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher (Video Game), Wiedźmin | The Witcher Series - Andrzej Sapkowski
Genre: Adventure & Romance, Dimension Travel, F/M, Happy Ending, Human/Vampire Relationship, Post-Canon, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-06
Updated: 2021-02-11
Packaged: 2021-03-17 01:01:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 33,330
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28591422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lara_Morgenstern/pseuds/Lara_Morgenstern, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merenili/pseuds/Merenili
Summary: A young Polish duchess Katarina Opalinskaya was preparing to become a wife of Stanislav Leshchinsky, who was ten years older than her, but she did not want this marriage, and therefore resisted it with all her will. On the night before the wedding, she made a secret wish for a black raven that sat on her window. The wedding still took place, but at the onset of the first wedding night, Katarina went out onto the balcony, trying to hide from her nervousness, slipped and fell straight down... into Beauclair.
Relationships: Emiel Regis Rohellec Terzieff-Godefroy/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 14
Kudos: 19





	1. My one and only

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks very much to my co-creator Lara Morgenstern for translating this work into English.  
> The story is finished and will be posted chapter by chapter as soon as the translation is ready.
> 
> Hope you enjoy it! :-)

“Surely you must be petrified, Katarina.” She heard a mellow voice of a man clothed with darkness entirely; his robes, as well as his hair and narrowed eyes were as dark as night. “May I say that you’d be torn apart by a bruxa if it hadn’t been for me. I rushed to your rescue, thus, I’d ask you to be a bit more grateful. Do stop you cries and tears and fierce struggles, it hampers the experiment.”

Katarina followed his smooth lingering movements with her eyes, his long thin fingers fidgeting with glass tubes, his steps as soft as ones of a cat does. She didn’t have a single idea of those bruxae he had mentioned, neither had she courage to inquire.

Maman was right, indeed. It must take a desperate and senseless human being to ask _a black raven_ for help, for it is a bird of terror and damnation, a warcryer, a bringer of grief and suffering.

But she did it. At the moment of perishing fear, right after having tried on an exquisite yet so mismatching lace dress for the last time. Pale by nature, her skin looked ever so cold and dull covered with white fabric. Katarina asked a black raven for a chance to escape from her gilded cage, the thought of which had never left her for the entire year prior to the wedding. Now she was reaping as she had sown.

How could it be possible? Is _this_ what salvation looks like?

“Now raise your hand, my dear.” The man leaned towards her, taking her finger adorned with a precious engagement ring, and artfully poked it with a needle. “See? Nothing to be afraid of.”

There was not a slightest movement from Katarina. All the corsets that her maids tightened on her waist and ribs not only prevented her from eating; sometimes it seemed impossible even to breathe, which caused her a great deal of pain and sufferings. What is a finger compared to that?

She slowly looked around coming to her senses. The room seemed peaceful covered with warm candle light and velvet glittering with golden strings on tapestries. From an open window - just like in her own room - the sweet scent of twilight and roses was pouring inside. Katarina found herself sitting in a chair, her hands tied up firmly by the man who introduced himself as Miron Gorgranski, the descendant of great Covinarius - though that did not ring a bell for Katarina - who now brought his attention to numerous bottles, jars and retorts.

“Unimaginable!” he exclaimed. “You’ve survived an attack of a bruxa and kept her venom within your blood. Do you have any idea how rare an occasion like this one is?”

Katarina did not. She had spent several long hours in Miron’s company, and now realized that he didn’t like being interrupted. All his questions and exclamations were directed to himself. Although sometimes he was merciful enough to answer a question, his face would wince as if he had a toothache.

“The problem is… it’s not that easy to recover the venom,” he mumbled. “Too many byproducts. We must hurry until it is all gone from your body.”

Katarina observed the sorcerer in silence, her mind numb from the surrealism of what was happening. Her eyes just desperately picked objects around: here was a good heavy candlestick, too far from her though... And there she noticed a pretty little chamber pot but it was no good with her hands tied. And right here was a hair pin with jewels, thin and shiny and impeccably sharp. Only a couple of inches away…

“Do you know how many specimens such as yourself I have had in my life, Katarina?” the man continued with a thick somewhat German accent. His dark brown eyes glowed when he looked at the girl. “Innumerable. But I was rarely in time for a feast. The specimens died of blood loss, or in case of a garkain or a fleder were torn into pieces, their ribs inside out and gut on the ground.”

He glanced at her, apparently expecting to see fright or dismay of some sort, but he failed. Despite the 17th century coming to an end, life didn’t taste sweet. Katarina had seen a great deal of guts and blood when her father took his only surviving daughter to a hunt, against her mother’s protests. He would set hounds on hares to hang their dead bodies on trees afterwards awaiting flaying. Katarina would try to avoid the latter, not willing to smell a displeasing scent of blood, but rarely succeeded.

The girls had encountered the bruxa, or as Miron called her - the vampiress - twice already. The first time it happened in a monstrous city filled with cries, smoke and splashes of blood. It must have been the very heart of Hell, its capital, for sure. It was the place she found herself after falling off her balcony - people running in chaos tripping, creatures growling, laughter coming from all sides and claws rasping.

Then the woman appeared. Beautiful and fearless in her black cloak she turned into a dry-skinned fanged and clawed creature. First approaching for the woman’s help, Katarina was now running away tripping in her white night shirt. She nearly missed a grey haired angel who flew out of the turn. A flash of a sword and a cry - she saw nothing of that doing her best to escape, only to later get lost in the wilderness. And face the monsters again, this time greater in number, one resembling a human being. Master Miron burned those creatures down with wildfire pouring from his hands, making an impression of a courageous and noble man. But there could not be such a man in this menacing world.

“Fear not, Katarina,” he nodded softly when catching her gaze. “You may think I’m your enemy. Well, I’m not. I have absolutely no intention to kill you. You are a butterfly too rare to be allowed to die before I figure out the pattern in your wings.”

A knock on the door made her shiver with fear, or, perhaps, with hope. Miron’s face, on the other hand, straightened and became hard as stone. He briefly wagged his finger at her, like a father would do to a child, and headed to the door, his steps now as light as a shadow.

“What?!” he flung the door open before a young staggered man in black uniform. “I told you not to bother me!”

“But master Miron, the city’s on fire! It’s under vampire’s attack, we need your he…”

“Help? Are you crazy or suicidal? That miserable little squad from the Emperor can’t possibly fight a hundred bloodthirsty creatures, even my help considered! We must find the root of this evil and grub it up! The root! That is precisely what I’m working on, so do not disturb me!”

The soldier casted a brief look at the girl sitting behind Miron’s back; she stared at him desperately, but the sorcerer quickly blocked the view with his shoulder.

“She has been bitten by a bruxa!” he barked at the soldier. “Do you realize that she’s been cursed now? Get out!”

He shut the door nearly breaking the young man’s nose and turned around. A deep sigh, and his face again resembled one of a schmaltzy unworldly madman.

“Children,” he mumbled, “silly naive children… Rushing into battles, believing in victory and being nonsensical. I am saving their lives at this very moment, yet all they think of are heroic deeds!” 

Miron moved back to his bottles and retorts, not noticing the hairpin was now gone, lying safely in Katarina’s clasped hands. She was shivering from cold, but the sorcerer was too occupied to notice such a small thing. He muttered strange brief phrases in an unknown language nodded contentedly and smacked his lips from time to time.

“Here we are… Just wait a bit, child, and we’ll test this on you…”

He was standing with his back to her but he would certainly feel her coming onto him. The chair she was in creaked horribly; much like the bed where she and her newlywed husband were to conceive an heir.

Katarina looked at the window and her heart fell down. A black raven peeped in with curiosity, rather than fear of bright light or the people, bowed his head with bulging eyes, sort of shrugged his wings, turned away indifferently and left, as if it was his mission to make sure the girl was in the right place.

Meanwhile Miron poured a light-green shimmering potion into a glass with a thin neck, sniffed it and nodded happily. Turning to Katarina with a delighted face he made her jerk in an attempt to move away from him and fall down still sitting in the damn chair. The back of her head pierced with pain and the world went dark for a moment.

“This decoction is going to make you better.” She heard him whispering in her ear when suddenly he pinched her nose and poured the liquid into her mouth. She nearly choked on it but managed to spit out at least a half of it on her chin and chest, yet its rotten flavour resided on her tongue and throat.

“Wha... What have you done to me?”

“Let’s say, it’s an antidote.” He grabbed her chin and looked her in the eyes. “It will take some time to work.”

The decoction now reached her stomach burning her insides. She screamed briefly from the heat wave going from her heart to fingertips. The cold steel of the hairpin brought her back to consciousness.

Miron was smiling at her, hanging over her so close, that she could smell his sweet flowery cologne. His face changed for a second resembling a devil’s grimace with horns and flaming eyes. Katarina screamed again, this time with terror, and forced the hairpin into his left eye.

Now with a needle in his eye socket he looked stunned. His hands again shimmered with fire, the heat poured onto her, Miron’s body collapsed and the fire was gone. She watched it quite indifferently, feeling only some itching under her skin and a disgusting taste in her mouth.

Katarina removed the dead man’s heavy body and stood up carefully. She was not at all herself, moving thoughtlessly away in fear of whoever or whatever could come after this devil worshipper.

In the other end of the room she finally turned around to see him still lying face down and sighed with relief.

He was moving no more.

A warm flowery night met Katarina with scents of herbs, light wind, and grasshopper chirps. The girl was able to cut the ropes with a scalpel she had found in a chest in the same room; she then got changed into clothes that once belonged to Miron and was too loose for her, and got out of his place by the trellis, for which Katarina was too heavy, so it broke beneath her, and she fell on the ground with a terrible noise. Luckily, there was no one to hear her escaping.

The city in the distance wasn’t burning anymore, there were ashes everywhere now, and the smoke was rising above fine elegant rooftops, as if somebody had just put out a candle. A thunderstorm battered Beauclair (if she remembered its name correctly), terrifying zigzags of lightning struck the city over and over, visualizing winged demonic silhouettes, as though the gods abandoned the place.

Away from here, from this dreadful city and the house Miron had chosen to stay, throwing the landlady in an emerald dress, who was greeting him, out of his way with a hit in her face. Katarina didn’t hope to find her way back home anymore; it seemed, she was indeed in Hell - a punishment for the betrayal of her husband, her throne and her parents” will.

At first she ran, then slowly jogged, until she could only walk being out of breath and energy. She was afraid of every bush sitting in the darkness along the road like a sleeping beast ready to devour her. At least an hour passed when she finally stopped to have rest, putting her palm on a cold rough bark, and giggled hysterically. Grim visions of the past night glimpsed in her mind making her freeze or pushing forward.

Here is Hell there were people who had a power over fire; there were monsters sent to punish people for their sins; there were women and children torn apart, and their houses burnt down. Yet everything else seemed the same, and one could stand a chance as long as one could fight or flight.

Katarina didn’t notice how she ended up in a grove far from the main road. She decided to lie down by a thick tree, the stars flickering above in the crown, and have a nap. She was hoping that it was all just a nightmare, which would go away should she wake up... 

“Well, my friend,” Regis put his lovely bag, which smelled of herbs and spices, over the head, glanced briefly at another shelter that he was about to leave, and nodded to a black bird. “Again we’re on the way to a great unknown in this wonderful world full of mysteries.”

He was walking calmly along the road away from hills, where the damaged but still withstanding city was. The oaks rustled, and the herbs smelled so sweet that all the surrounding bumblebees flocked to the flowers. Regis sometimes stopped at one inflorescence, then at another, plucking thin stems, and sometimes simply admiring what was alien to him even after so many years, but still beautiful.

Vampires had gone from Beauclair after their leader - gloomy, silent Dettlaff, whom Geralt decided to let go and Regis faint-heartedly agreed. He felt a subtle prick of regret and guilt towards humanity for allowing an old friend to take his revenge and for letting him go without a fight. Too late to dwell on it now. Anyway, Regis felt that he didn’t belong here either. At least Geralt could find some peace after serving his time in prison and once would reconcile with the capricious duchess.

The road twisted like a hot ribbon, where one’s blood could boil should one come out in the sun. The journey went on and on, and by lunchtime, Regis stopped for a break. Beauclair was visible from here, as if it did not want to let go, constantly reminding him of what had happened only two weeks ago. Regis lowered himself into the shade of a thick tree, kicked off his bag, and thoughtfully threw back his head, closing his eyes. The noise that came to him a moment after did not disturb his peace. Whoever it is - they cannot be more terrible for him than himself.

“Hold her! Don’t let her go!”

“Get her from the right!”

“Kurwa!” 

Bushes crackled in the distance, as if they were being broken through at least with an ax. The thud of hooves grew louder and heavier, armor and other people's unclean mouths clattered. Regis turned his eyes to the left, expecting to finally see the hero of the occasion. Judging by the breath that came to him a minute ago and the sounds of running, the one who was escaping the chase was rather small in weight - a woman or a child.

“Where did she go?” not really a knight, but a soldier came to sight. The second appeared right after him.

“I think she ran to the river.”

“You “think”?”

“How the hell would I know?”

“If we don’t bring her in alive, they would chop our heads off for that wizardous bastard!”

They rode on, but those who followed them split up and headed in the opposite direction. Unfortunately, for Regis, their path went through exactly where he chose a place to rest.

He was patiently awaiting the arrival of unfriendly guests, when a girl with a desperation on her face flew out of the bush on the left and froze in shock. Regis only nodded to her in a polite greeting, while she herself stood stunned, her arms outstretched comically. The run-away looked first behind her back, from where the thud was heard, then straight ahead; she rushed forward, but the soldiers were already riding up the hill. All three are very furious.

“Gotcha, bitch!” one of them said, waving his hand in annoyance. “You’re such a…”

The girl froze like a dove with a wounded wing, moving her eyes over the husky men in panic. Regis could easily read every thought in her eyes: the way she calculated the escape plan, the way she pondered whether she would be able to steal the horses and, finally, the despair of a beast driven into a corner, flashing in her eyes, and behind it - the most terrible decision.

“Quiet, damsel,” a soldier said in a threatening way, trying to calm his horse. “There’s no way to run, so just be a good gal and give in.”

She made one step back but had to quickly move sideways as there were three more riders behind. She looked diminutive compared with the horsemen, not to mention her scruffy old clothing.

“Bitch knocked my tooth out,” muttered one of those who stood behind her, frustratedly touching his sore lip with his fingers. “You will pay extra for this.”

Regis knew what was hidden behind both the "extra" and the unkind gaze of a man whose ego was so incautiously hurt by a girl, too weak in comparison with him to accept being defeated by her.

He watched the unequal confrontation for several seconds, assessing the position of the people, and then slowly got up.

“Kind gentlemen,” Regis started softly, “please, excuse my interest, but…”

“Who are you? An accomplice?”

“Just an accidental witness of this occurrence.” Regis spreaded his hands.

“Then mind your accidental business someplace else. Don’t you see? The law is about to be served.”

“The Lynch law”, Regis thought.

He took a deep breath.

“I’m afraid, in the present circumstances the true law might not be served, after all. Thus, I must insist on staying.”

“Listen here, old man,” a rider grinned, “this beast is wanted for the murder of a noble Nilfgaardian sorcerer Miron Gorgranski, so you can’t fight justice!”

“Beast, you say?” Regis said thoughtfully, looking at the creature, covered with dirt and road dust, in disheveled clothes and tousled hair. How could she kill a sorcerer, Regis did not fully understand, and therefore he became more interested. The girl, finding unexpected help, on the other hand, cringed even more, squinting at Regis with a look of a frightened doe.

Meanwhile, one of the riders’ stallion got tired of standing still and, frightened by the bumblebee buzzing before his eyes, shook his head, scratching his hoof and stepping back. His neighbor, finding someone else's ass in front of him, immediately kicked up, a disgruntled neigh spread across the woods, and the girl lost the entirety of her mind.

She suddenly drew a short knife out of her bosom, stretched out her trembling hand in one direction, then to another, and at last put the knife to her own throat.

“Over my dead body” Katarina’s eyes said, blue flames dancing inside.

“Gonna kill yourself, aren’t you?” the mustache-wearing soldier chuckled, calming the stallion. “Slice from ear to ear that easy, huh?”

“I will!” hoarsely, but loudly she answered without a pause.

The clarity of her voice echoed pleasantly inside Regis, somewhat reminiscent of the already deceased Milva. She, too, was not shy about loud talk and, moreover, sang superbly.

“You can't…” the rider drawled lazily and finally dismounted. He walked forward slowly, palms outstretched in front of him. “You, girl, if you wanted to die so much, you would have stabbed yourself long ago.”

“Stay away!”

“Or what? C’mon, slice that throat of yours, I’ll bring your dead body in and be over it.”

She sighed abruptly, but as the man reached for the crossbow at his belt, she pressed the steel tighter to her throat. Regis smelled a faint scent of hot and young blood and involuntarily sniffed. There was no need to get involved in a bad battle with people who, obviously, acted by the book of the law; however, he had seen more than enough deaths in recent weeks. And this fight, by definition, could not be fair and equal.

“Gentlemen, let’s discuss this peacefully,” he said calmly.

“Get away, old man, you deaf or what? Try to lecture me again, and I will cut your head open.”

Apparently, Nilfgaardian soldiers did not quite share fine manners and eloquent speeches with knights of Toussaint, the land of which they currently found themselves in.

“Well...” - Regis sighed.

He took a step towards the riders, but they pushed forward first, and the girl swung the knife at her own neck quickly and confidently. Regis gripped her slender wrist in his own hand before the steel cut through the carotid artery, smelling amazement and a delicate human scent, when she suddenly flinched and almost hung in his arms.

“How did you do it, old man?” the most talkative of all asked in a stunned manner.

He was the first to lose consciousness when Regis, in short, quick leaps, appeared behind the backs of the soldiers, stunning them one by one, wrapping his fingers around their temples and inspiring the idea of a deep, calm sleep. Now the girl was lying on the hill, surrounded by armoured men like Sleeping Beauty by dwarves. Her face smoothed out and when Regis walked up to her, shaking her head thoughtfully, she seemed to be asleep in an enchanted dream.

“Geralt, Geralt,” Regis muttered, leaning towards her. “Every time I meet you I get stuck in such strange, but entertaining stories, which I cannot resist…”

Regis watched how quickly and well Katarina, as she introduced herself, destroyed the stocks of the food he had taken with him for the week. She ate like a person who has not seen decent food for a long time, but sometimes she seemed to remember her manners - she slowed down, looked back at him meekly - and then again greedily descended to the bowl. Her hands were white and tender, and a ring was already sparkling on her right hand - a very stupid idea to wear something so valuable for show, even if it is at least three times a sign of great and eternal love.

“I can’t take it off.” She said, catching his glimpse. “The damn ring got stuck, and I failed to find some soap. Dammit!”

Regis raised his eyebrows in surprise, and she got confused, though she didn’t explain anything.

“How come a young married lady be so far away from home all alone?”

“I can’t tell.” Katarina said firmly, raising her eyes. They still hid the fear of a puppy thrown into the street who did not know good hands.

“You cannot or will not?”

“I won’t be able to.” she shook her head. “The sin I desired to commit in my thoughts must have been so dreadful for me to end up in this hell. But the manner of how it happened is beyond my reasoning.”

“In Hell, you say?” Regis muttered to himself. “How fascinating. And who am I then? The devil?”

“You are a kind soul,” she shrugged, “lost here as much as I am. Perhaps, you are a shepherd who releases the souls kept here by mistake?”

“You flatter me greatly, Katarina. “

She didn't answer. Now she was very sorry that she had revealed her real name to a kind stranger. She remembered an old belief - say your name to the devil and he will take your soul. But there was no turning back, and Regis was not at all like the devil. He did not look seductive, lustful, or angry, and there was no danger in his calm eyes. This was strange. In this entire terrible world, she still had not met a single kind person except him.

“So, how much time has passed since your...fall?” he laughed.

“The sun has risen fourteen times.” She looked at the sky, counting.

“Fourteen? Youэve spent fourteen days here all alone but with this knife?”

“I... hid, mostly.” she was embarrassed, forgetting about the stew for a brief moment. “I wandered into a cave full of moss and mushrooms near a forest glade, while I spent some time, and then set off again. I was afraid of wild animals, sometimes I heard them in the distance, but they seemed to bypass me. Then people... Or not. I don't know.” she frowned. “Everything here is so shaky and strange…”

“You are exceptionally lucky. Or maybe just resilient. How did those guards find you?”

“I didn't know they were looking for me,” she said wearily, drooping her shoulders. “That is, I should have thought about it, but I completely forgot about…” she broke off and immediately corrected herself awkwardly: “About what happened. They found me at one of the settlements where demons must be keeping people to feed themselves. I tried to find help, but they came out of the corner and recognized me.”

“When did it happen?”

“Three day ago.”

Katarina bit her lip as the face of the one with the knocked out tooth came up in front of her eyes. And she also remembered his hands at her throat and on her chest, making their way under her shirt and how he was distracted by a bear that had grown up in the bushes, and she was already running away.

“Well, you are alive, and it is all that matters.” said Regis, and Katarina smiled thankfully.

She returned to her meal while Regis gazed at her fine features. The clothes that were on her could not belong to her - they were too large, and Katharina did not know how to wear them, like any lady of the court who, by the will of fate, was dressed in a traveling bag. Regis knew such things.

He narrowed his eyes.

“Where are you from, Katarina?”

She looked at him strangely, as if he was asking something obvious, and then she noticed something behind him and shuddered as if from a blow. Regis looked around thoughtfully, found nothing but a lone bird on the branch, and looked back at Katarina.

“All my misfortunes are from them,” she said gloomily in response to his questioning look. She sighed and reluctantly explained: “I asked the raven for help. A black bird, a harbinger of troubles and misfortunes. In a difficult moment, I poured out my heart and paid for it. So I ended up here.”

Regis chuckled in disbelief and slightly shook his head.

“Your earlier misfortunes must have been much harder than the present ones, if you became so desperate.”

She glanced sideways at the wedding ring and immediately hid her gaze, but Regis caught sight of it and chuckled lightly.

“Well,” he got up. “Since you have rested, we should go to the river to wash you of the mud. And then we'll move on. Better to hurry up to avoid chase and extra eyes.”

Katarina froze, looking up at him warily.

““We” will move on? Will you escort me?”

“Why not? I dare to think that you are moving away from Beauclair, and therefore we share the same way.”

“But what about the guards? Pursuers?”

Regis tilted his head with a grin.

“Since you managed to lead them a dance for so long, do you really think that I will not be able to cope with it?”

“The world is no good without good people, but there are much worse people in this one,” Katarina said firmly. “What would you wish for your selfless help? My…” She gasped for a second, giving Regis room for imagination, but managed to surprise with the question: “...soul?”

He chuckled, shaking his head.

“Just a company, Katarina. Loneliness is a cruel beast. It does not spare anyone. Whenever fate presents me with the opportunity to fill in time on the path in someone's pleasant company, I prefer to use it.”

“And are you just willing... to help?”

“It's not at all difficult for me. Trust me. And do not look for anything reprehensible in my actions. I have nothing to take from you.”

Katarina nodded cautiously, still took a hold of his hand, leaned on it and slowly stood up. The palm was warm and very human.


	2. Truths and Lies

The river surface sparkled in the sun, and the warm sand coated bare feet tenderly. On the other riverbank there was an old fishing boat, and behind it - a sloped hut with a multicolored door. No corpses, no murderers, no demons, Katarina noted as she was walking down with Regis to the very edge of the water, quietly splashing against small stones.

When Regis turned away, Katarina would glance furtively at him, trying to examine an unusual face almost without wrinkles, yet framed by graying hair. Regis was a man beyond age and beyond eras. He didn’t look young; neither could one feel old age in his measured movements and the way he kept his shoulders. At times it seemed to Katarina that he could see perfectly well how she was examining him carefully, but preferred to tactfully ignore, looking at the local landscapes with careless interest.

“If you are worried about drowners, they aren’t here,” Regis said serenely from behind Katarina. He walked so quietly that it was impossible to predict his appearance. “After the massacre there were a lot of corpses in the city but for so long they’ve been all carried downstream, so drowners rushed to feast there.

Katarina did not know anything about the mysterious drowners but at the very beginning of her flight, she once risked approaching the shore and saw there dancing blue demons with bared jaws. Regis must have been talking about them.

He left tactfully, giving the girl the opportunity to undress without prying eyes and wash, but Katarina looked around for a long time, looking for him in the foliage. Finally, she forced herself to relax, walked slowly into the water, stepping on smooth pebbles, and closed her eyes with a sigh. The water turned out to be warm and not at all horrendous, just like at home. Katarina even splashed it several times with her palms, just like in childhood, whipping up the white spray, and then saw her own reflection and froze. She had not seen it since her death, and now her haggard face, rather tanned by the sun, disheveled hair and sunken cheeks looked back at her as if from the other side of life.

She peered at herself for a long time, running her fingers over the face, until a silent, foul-smelling shadow hung over her. The next moment Katarina screeched out of the water wearing next to nothing, breaking into the dense bushes nearby. The creeping danger was far more frightening than the shame of being naked in front of her companion. Her shame stood Regis in good stead, when he, without Katarina seeing, ripped open the loose belly of the lost rotfiend with his claws and threw him aside before it burst, splattering everything around with stinking scraps.

“Your clothes, Katarina,” Regis said, wiping his fingers with a handkerchief. Without turning around he stretched out his hand to give the girl her pants and shirt.

“Thank you.”

An hour later, they were walking along a dusty road together. Regis was silent, calmly looking at the mountain landscapes that opened from any point on the way, while Katarina thoughtfully nibbled daisy. White petals, driven by the girl’s fingers, came off and whirled, and fell into the road dust. Three years ago, her friend Zofia told her fortune by the lake about her future husband. They laughed and sang songs, burned candles, looked at the tea leaves at the bottom of the mug, and laid out cards. At those moments, the future seemed wonderfully carefree.

“What is this city?” Katarina dared to ask at last, nodding to Beauclair.

“Oh, it’s a wonderful place!” Regis responded briskly, as if he’d just been waiting. “Beauclair is the main city of Toussaint, which in its turn is a Nilfgaardian province. The land of blooming roses and fruitful vineyards, full of sun and fun at any time of the year… You seem to be confused by something?”

“I would never have thought that there are cities in hell full of sun and fun. And vineyards.”

Every time she spoke of it, Regis's eyes were elusively amused, as if he was watching a playful child.

“Strictly speaking, Katarina,” he mused after a minute of silence, “each of us determines the essence of hell, in which they dwell, on their own. For many, this is the same world, indistinguishable from the one they were born in.

“And what about demons?” she was afraid to ask, but could not resist.

The last time she raised this topic, the sorcerer became unusually interested; he began to ask her about her past life, and then by all means decided to force her to drink the damn potion and even made incomprehensible gestures over her head, obviously, accompanying all this with words in a satanic dialect.

“Demons?” Regis wondered.

“Yes, I saw several. The water demons are blue, like swollen corpses. Earthy greens that grow straight out of the ground and bloom poisonous buds. And...women.”

“Women?” Regis's face suddenly darkened, and Katarina immediately regretted her decision, but it was too late to retreat.

“Asmodeus’s daughters. They looked like ordinary women and then stripped naked, revealing their lustful dangerous nature.”

“And you managed to escape them?”

“I don't remember that well,” she shivered under his gaze. “I ran away from a demoness when a gray-haired angel had hacked her to death with a sword. And then a sorcerer, Satan’s worshiper, saved me from the rest of them. He doused them with hellfire, and they burned up at once.”

“Katarina,” Regis shook his head in what she thought was a little unease. “You still have a lot to learn, and I will tell you about it. For now, just think about this - there are millions of species and forms of living things in the world, and each of them lives by its own laws. Demons are invented by people, and the real, the most terrible of them, live only in their own heads.”

Their next halt took place at sunset in a small village in which there were neither earthly, nor water, nor any other demons. There were only people here, friendly, shrill and loud. They drank wine, sang and burned fires, fed lazy cats and stray dogs, walking their hands over their fluffy withers. Katarina gazed with might and main at the Feast of life, not quite understanding the reasons for such an innocent carelessness so close to the hellish capital.

They should have avoided such crowded settlements, but the two weeks of despair and getaway that had passed in the woods took a toll on her health so much that at the end of the day Katarina could hardly walk. In addition, the blood decided, so inappropriately, to come out of her right now, hurting the lower abdomen with painful spasms. Of course, she did not inform her companion about this, but once he looked at her so strangely that she was frightened whether he had noticed blood on the hem of her shirt, which she accidentally stained.

A few hours later, Regis rented a room for Katarina in a nearby tavern. She saw a deep crease on his forehead as he was counting coins from a thin pouch. Apparently, money reigns supreme in hell as well.

“Don't,” she tried to stop him and inadvertently touched the bare palm of the man she hardly knew, immediately cursing herself and stepping back two steps. “Master. Regis, I am grateful to you, but…”

“It is necessary, “he smiled. “You are not adapted to such journeys. Noble blood flows in your veins, doesn't it?”

She got confused and simply gave a nod.

“You will rest in this tavern, and then we will set off. In the meantime, I am going to find horses. Can you ride a horse?”

“I can.”

“In that case, do settle down. And if need be - call for a raven, and it will give me a message.”

Katarina shook her head in response to a plain joke. Such nonsense! A raven for a message! One could only expect misfortune from ravens that she’d already understood. As for Regis - how could he possibly tease her after her having trusted him!

She went up the creaking stairs, entered the room and found chambers inside, which at best suited one of her former maids, but not the future Polish duchess. The disappointment was so sharp and unexpected that Katarina's heart sank. If she hadn’t been so reckless, she would now be resting on silk sheets, reading a book and feasting on juicy grapes from a silver platter. This damned marriage was not so scary, after all! No worse than death.

Katarina glanced over the wide courtyard from the dusty window - wild herbs and coloured flowers growing everywhere she looked. Regis walked away with a leisurely, calm pace, and for a second her heart skipped a beat. What if he wouldn’t come back? What if he’d just leave her here so as not to say goodbye?

However, Regis looked around wistfully, glanced at the window where she was staying, and Katarina immediately hid behind the curtain. What an embarrassment! Staring so shamelessly at an unknown man, and even depending on his every whim. Maman would have burned with shame and papa...even that his soul had been at peace for three years.

Regis returned an hour later, tactfully informed Katarina that the horses had been found (she did not dare to ask whom he robbed) and just as tactfully withdrew, reasoning that his presence in the same room with a married lady would insult her honor. She had no idea where he would sleep, but faint-heartedly kept silent - offering to share the night was completely impossible, and forcing Regis to admit that he had no money for another room was even more offending.

In these reflections, she met the tart night, coloured with yellow bonfires visible in the open window. People’s conversations magnified her, and the street smelled sweet and juicy of baked meat. Katarina glanced with disgust at her sickening shirt and pants, with which it was impossible to wear underwear - the embroidered shirt that she had left in Myron's hideout. It was not appropriate for a woman of her position and status to dress like a street bum, but begging to buy a dress was even more humiliating.

People on the street were buzzing in Old Polish, mixing words with a fancy accent and slightly stretching the vowels, and sometimes completely out of place they switched to a harsh, rude language, unfamiliar to Katarina. She listened for a long time to other people's conversations, missing human company, and finally, bold enough, got down from the edge of the bench not far from three girls laughing with might and main. Their heads were full of bright wreaths and beads ripe like lingonberries glittered in the unusually open neckline.

“Where are you from, sister?” having laughed off, asked the thinnest and tallest of them, like a soft white eustoma.

“From Beauclair,” Katarina blurted out, her eyes flashing around her.

“From Beau-clair-ah?” the girls looked at each other. “Is that the truth that there... the duchess’s sister was killed?”

Katarina nodded uncertainly, remembering Regis's stories, which he gave out in his favorite manner: dilating, in details, and absolutely incomprehensibly.

“Did the vampires kill her?” the girl switched to a quiet whisper, and then suddenly slapped herself on her knees. “My name’s Raspberry”, she held out her hand. Katarina gently shook the warm hand of the one that was subtly similar to her childhood friend and introduced herself. “Have you seen them yourself? I mean, the vampires?”

At first, she was scared that she would say something wrong again, and then the friendly girl with red hair, who was sitting in the middle, shoved a mug of hot wine and spices into Katarina's hands, and the third one put her palms under her chin, sparkling with curious violet eyes.

Katarina opened her mouth and couldn't stop. Memories of a terrible night opened up like an abscess, and melodious beautiful voices soothed. Now vampires didn’t seem so real, the nights weren’t dark, and people weren’t strangers. They were the same here — these people — they laughed and sang in the same way, cried the same way and suffered the same way.

“…And I ran,” Katarina nodded, retelling her story once again. The redhead pressed her hand to her mouth, and Raspberry simply poured more wine. “I ran in my underwear up hill and down dale. I saw only an angel with gray hair and a sparkling blade that appeared from under the black arch, as if he had stepped out of the darkness, but he entered into battle with the hellish fiend behind my back. His sword burned with sacred runes, burning my eyes with the holy light”.

“What a handsome story,” the youngest gasped in admiration. “Even called a witcher an angel.”

“Witcher?” Katarina asked before she could check herself.

“Sure thing! It was the legendary Geralt of Rivia himself. _The_ witcher,” the three of them giggled funnily. “There are many tales of him. Haven’t you heard?”

“Just a bit,” Katharina said awkwardly.

The girls were just waiting for that.

“Master Dandelion has composed many ballads about his wanderings,” Raspberry couldn't help blabbing out. “They say, he spat in the face of our emperor himself. And he refused to bow.”

“He wouldn’t spit,” the redhead snorted, brushing her brassy hair from her shoulders. “He may have defeated the Wild Hunt, but the Emperor is too tough for him.”

“You tell this to Annarietta’s sister, who died untimely. She, too, probably thought she was too tough for him.”

“Have you lost your mind, or what? If it were so, Annarietta would not release the witcher from prison.”

“So she didn’t. Until Master Dandelion came to the rescue and caressed her with his speeches. It's clear as sky what happened there.”

Katarina looked from one to another, eager for details, absorbing every word.

“The witcher himself enchanted her with his charms,” the violet-eyed waved her hand. “He must have lived in the world for centuries, since he managed to mess up so much.”

“Centuries?” Katarina asked in astonishment, and the girls remembered about her again.

“Well…” Raspberry shrugged. “They say he's old if you count how many winters he has outlived. But you can't tell from the face right away. Witchers, they are mutants. Monsters. The duchess invited him to hunt down the Beast and bring her his severed head, and instead he brought her sister's lifeless body. Well, so they say,” she was embarrassed at the end.

“What else do you know about witchers?” Katarina asked cautiously.

“Same as everyone else! They stuffed them, you know, with all sorts of rubbish and the blood of monsters, conjured over them, and then - bam! - they turned out to be such monsters with a white muzzle and veins all over their face. Thank gods they are sterile, otherwise there would be a pack of their offspring, just as terrible, running around the villages.”

"Stuffed with rubbish and the blood of monsters." Katarina sighed softly and looked carefully at her hands; they were usual, human, but…

“They say they can slay any monster,” continued Raspberry, “whether it is a drowner or a dragon; though my sense is that a squad of soldiers or men with pitchforks will cope no worse. Not to mention our knights, but they are so stupid sometimes that you might have to go against the monster yourself… Oops!”

Katarina turned to follow Raspberry's gaze and met Regis's attentive eyes. He stood in the shadows, listening with interest to Raspberry’s emotional monologue, his gaze giving goosebumps under their skin. The girls stared curiously at the newcomer, and then looked questioningly at Katarina. She hesitated, and her own ring caught the eye so mistimely, catching the glow of the fire on a golden side.

“This… this is my husband,” Katharina blurted out before her mind could take over her tongue.

The ring, as if by chance, flashed like a flawless diamond, and the girls sighed with delight, marveling at the luck of their new girlfriend and wondering how average such a rich man looks.

“Come on, dear,” Regis said softly, as if he was being called a spouse every day by some unfamiliar girls. “There's a long way to go tomorrow. After all, we still have to return to Beauclair. Ladies,” he bowed politely, eliciting enthusiastic sighs.

“Beauclair?” asked Katarina later, when the two of them slowly walked along the country road, illuminated by fancy wrought-iron lanterns hanging from houses and candlelit windows. Furry fireflies danced around them. “We are…”

“For distraction,” Regis sighed. “I am inclined to note that I considered you a woman of reason, Katarina. Not long ago you were hunted by very dangerous people who acted, on their assurances, within the framework of the law. If you start talking about yourself with every stranger, their search will not last long.”

“I beg your pardon,” she repented. “Having travelled with you, I forgot about the danger.”

The statement came out sincere, fell from her lips faster than a thought, and Regis just glanced at Katarina archly.

“Your desire for human communication after everything you have experienced is understandable, Katarina. But those gentlemen were quite determined to accuse you of murder of their master.”

Katarina froze for a moment, but then she pulled herself together, deciding that it was no longer possible to delay, and said firmly:

“It's true.”

“What exactly is it?” Regis turned.

Catarina stopped and clasped her hands stubbornly under her stomach.

“It is true, Master Regis, that I killed that… person.”

Regis stopped after her and his eyebrows rose. First, he looked in surprise at the fine wedding ring on the delicate finger, and then at her determined, stubborn eyes.

“Are you a murderer?”

“You heard what the soldiers said.”

“If I believed every word I heard, I would not stand here alive and well.”

“But it is so. I killed that devil’s servant.”

“How, may I ask?”

“I stuck a hairpin in his eye,” said Katarina resolutely, as she always did when she confessed to her mother about the childish mischiefs in which her maids were involved and were threatened to be flogged. “It was the only weapon available to me.”

“So that's how…”

“Yes. And then I took his clothes and this knife…”

Regis raised his right hand gently.

“Interesting details. Do you wish for me to consider you a murderer?”

“I wish to be sincere with you, Master Regis. This is the smallest gratitude I can repay you for your help,” Katarina said honestly, lifting her chin and looking into his eyes without fear. In the darkness they turned completely black, but Katarina did not look away, even though everything inside her clenched.

“Honesty is an attribute of the truly brave - and thus a privilege of the very few.” Regis muttered thoughtfully. “I assume you will name your reasons?”

“He wielded black magic, Master Regis, and gave me a strange potion that wasn’t supposed to work right away. Probably, it was about a demonic rite and sacrifice, for which he was preparing me,” admitted Katarina.

“Katarina, you have absolutely no reason to call me master.”

She shrugged her shoulders awkwardly.

“Are you leaving me alone now?”

“Why would I ever do so?”

“You know what I did. You are a kind man, and there is no need for you to help someone who has committed a crime.”

Regis chuckled and looked up at the sky.

“The notion of a crime is decided by the law, but, perhaps, sometimes it is faulty, whereas life always puts everything in its place. I will not judge a girl who defended her life in the only way available to her, and I will not refuse her help as long as we go the same way. Please.” he held out his hand, and Katarina put hers on top uncertainly. It felt as if an unshakable rock was erected next to her. “I’ll take you to the tavern, and in the morning we’ll hit the road. You will have to take off the ring, although.” He pulled out a piece of soap from his bosom. “I’m sure, it will suffice. Now, tell me more about the potion and the devil worshiper…”

Regis listened attentively, never interrupted, his questions always sounded to the point, as if he was not so much asking as adding little links to Katarina's story. Very soon, she caught herself telling him not only about her misadventures, but also about the past Christmas holidays, about Stanislav, about her mother and about the terrible story of Agnieszka's maid... Yet she did not learn a bit about Regis.

“And you…” Katharina began slowly. “Why are you traveling from Beauclair?”

“To admit, as a friend of mine used to say, I just love to be on the Path,” Regis replied, making no attempt to dodge the answer, still not directly answering the question. “The road entertains me as much as human stories.”

“Do you write books?”

He looked somewhat surprised at his companion.

“I’ve never thought about that.”

“You should. You have a neat manner.”

Regis chuckled.

“Did you mention that the deceased sorcerer was a descendant of Covinarius?”

Katarina nodded, not at all happy that Regis had once again smoothly transferred the topic from himself to anything else.”

“Does this name ring a bell to you?”

“Yes, I was familiar with him…” he absent-mindedly responded, and immediately corrected himself. “With his research papers, of course. I studied them.”

Katarina frowned, mouth opening, when Regis suddenly preemptively extended his hand to the side, and his strong palm lay exactly on her stomach. She threw herself up in indignation, and then looked ahead.

People emerging from the darkness thickened under the extinguished lantern blocked their way. There were only four of them; that is, Regis thought so. Katarina thought quite differently. As many as four. She stepped back, flashing wary eyes at the tramps.

“Toss a coin, kind sir and madam. We’re starving,” said the thinnest and most fidgety in a clear, healthy voice.

“Isn’t your ring so shiny!” said the second, looking predatory at Katarina's hand.

“Does it not come across to you, young people,” Regis said softly, “that lashing out at a young woman and her companion is highly unethical?”

“At a girl and an old man,” the third chuckled, equipped with a short knife and even a crossbow dangling behind his back. “Don’t you fool us with your small talk and you’ll leave safe.”

Regis looked cautiously at Katarina, who had become an unwilling witness to the bad manners of the local inhabitants. They did not pose any threat to the vampire, but he did not want to demonstrate his extraordinary abilities to the girl. At least not so soon.

“I remember you,” Katharina said suddenly, shifting her eyes from one to the other, and seemed to even relax. “We’ve met.”

“When would we?”

“You met me near Beauclair, called me a whore, and then tried to grab me, but the soldiers came and scared you away. I remember you ran faster than the wind.”

“And you, I recall, screeched terribly,” the bandit frowned. “Soldiers had fun with you, eh?”

“Not fun really.”

Regis glanced at Katarina again. She spoke a little recklessly, and resentment mixed with anger rang thinly in her voice. The bandits exchanged looks, now staring at the "old man" who, from their point of view, was a mystery and probably possessed incredible talents, since the girl swaggers in his presence.

“And who are you?” One of them asked.

“Miron Gorgransky,” Regis sighed. “Nilfgaardian sorcerer and a descendant of Covinarius himself. And you, gentlemen, how do you introduce yourself?”

They looked at each other, tasting the complicated name, and Regis waited - what would outweigh them - greed or prudence? A minute later, the one with the crossbow took a persistent step forward.

Greed it was.

“You are a sorcerer or what - give a coin. Come on, come on. And take the ring off your girl. And the rest, too.” They laughed rudely.

Regis looked at Katarina, who had a flicker of alarm on her face, but more than that, there was desperate anger of a hunted animal.

“I’ll ask you to leave, dear Katarina, and not turn around until I tell you.”

“But…” she immediately jumped up as a displeased wolf cub.

“Please,” he repeated smoothly.

Their glance exchanges lasted too long, and the first of the bandits went on the attack, aiming right at Regis with a heavy ax. Regis, not particularly distracted from the bright blue eyes and the bitten lip, which he found very charming in the complex, raised his left hand. His fingers tightened in a steel grip around the bandit's wrist at the last moment, twisting him to the side. The man howled, tried to fight off with his foot, but Regis had already stepped to the side - so politely and predictively, as if letting a kind man pass at a crowded intersection, and the latter immediately flew his nose into the dust.

“Katarina!” Regis barked, now without a trace of his former delicacy.

It appeared to her that his eyes seemed to have darkened, but there it was too gloomy, and the moon gave little light through the clouds.

Katarina was about to obey, but Regis's back at that moment was so defenselessly exposed to the attack of three more bandits that she, without thinking twice, rushed to cut them. Regis's amazed eyes followed her movement as she was already behind him and her back to him.

The muscles worked faster than the brain, and Katarina threw up both hands, taking the blow of the man with the knife. That blow was rather weak and not the most correct, as he aimed at Regis’s back and the girl who turned up under the arm was shorter and messed up plans. No one expected that she would rush into the very heart of the fight.

Katarina grabbed the hands of the bandit, holding them with all her strength, and the sour-bitter smell of his sweat irritated her nose. She winced and felt herself giving in step by step. At that moment, when her hands began to tremble with fatigue, she noticed his eyes - he looked somewhere behind her and his face for some reason stretched out and turned white. She took advantage of the confusion of others and, finally, managed to push the attacker away, adding her elbow to the face for reliability.

When Katarina turned around, there was no one behind. Only the second of the attackers, in a dirty shirt, lay at her feet, and his wide-open eyes looked up meaninglessly.

“Re…” she began when someone grabbed her by the black braid. Katarina flushed with hurt and pain, tried to turn around, but the man hit Katarina on the back, somewhere in the kidney area, and she barely managed to dodge. “Damn you!” she howled as her hair pulled back and hurt more. Fear suddenly reached her right in the middle of the fight and began to shackle her body with thin needles.

Katarina thrashed in someone else's grip kicking with all her might, feeling that she was losing, when suddenly the alien hands on her hair and waist disappeared. The nasty smell was also gone. She lunged forward, nearly falling when her arms wrapped around her again - this time calm, polite, smelling of a spicy mixture of medicinal herbs.

“Hush, Katarina,” Regis said softly in her ear. For a moment, she thought that his voice sounded strange, low, but then he added in a completely familiar tone: “It's over.”

Katarina sighed deeply several times, not wanting to turn around and look at the four beings unworthy to be called human, and just stood there, with Regis not removing his hands.

“What was that, Katarina?” he asked just as quietly. “Why such misplaced courage? What for?”

“I don’t know,” she answered honestly, surprised at herself, and shrugged her shoulders helplessly, feeling Regis pull his chin away from her neck so that he would not inadvertently hurt. “I kind of… I got angry with them.”

"Is that so?" Regis gently turned her to him, thoughtfully studied the face, not finding traces of blows. “Let's go. It's time to end this unreasonable walk.”

She looked incredulously at Regis, not a wrinkle on his clothes, and no drop of blood on his hands.

“But how…” she said dumbfounded. “There were four of them and…”

“In the heat of battle one should always preserve the integrity of the mind,” Regis said edifyingly, after which he took her arm and pulled her along. She did not object and, considering, clung closer to Regis. “Then you can defeat even the most implacable enemy.”

They walked back quite a long time, though they could have walked faster, and an unprecedented calmness swept over Katarina, while Regis, on the contrary, frowned barely noticeably, and his hand was stiff and steel.

On the porch of the tavern, they politely said goodbye, and Katarina retired back to her rooms. A vague anxiety tormented her all the time that she climbed the stairs, but as soon as she went to bed it was gone. She lowered her eyelids in relief, falling into a doze, never linking her unexpected calm with the thin mist swirling around the closet.


	3. Waxworker

“What exactly did you wish then for?” Regis asked curiously as they rode, swaying in the saddle, and for the first time in her life, Katarina was sitting in it like a man. This turned out to be unusually convenient and seemed to be totally correct. “Your wish was…?”

“You mean the time I turned to a raven?”

Katarina shifted in the saddle, confused by the question.

“I can hardly recall,” she winced, reluctantly remembering, and then chanted: “Raven, raven, save me from the dark fate with the unloved and send me a sign to salvation. Give me your wings so that I can fly away just like you, far away, where they will never find me.” She did not add the part where she also painted the hope of meeting her betrothed, considering that it would be completely out of place.

“I can't say that he did not fulfill your request.”

“Maybe he did. Just...it turned out weirdly. I thought that no one could hear me, except for a bird, but under the windows there was a terrible bald person. He looked at me strangely, grinned so disgustingly that I thought he would definitely report it to my mother, and then I did not sleep all night with anxiety, which was unnecessary. He said nothing, and when we met in the morning for breakfast, it turned out that he was the Habsburg envoy. Gunther or Gaunter, I don't remember really…

Regis nodded in response and said nothing. He had been in a gloomy mood since the very last evening, when the two of them stumbled upon a flock of ravens - a large gloomy cloud, as if consisting of randomly flying black rags. The ravens swept over them with a terrifying croak and, banked to the west, disappeared behind the hills. Regis stared after them for a long time, while Katarina furtively crossed herself.

“We will be in Neunreuth very soon,” he said into the void.

“Where?”

"Oh…" Regis turned around, with some surprise to find Katarina beside him on a mottled palomino horse, as if he had seen her for the first time. “This is... This is a large city in Metinna, the Nilfgaardian province. Quite rich and big, although not bigger than Novigrad.”

“So we’re going there?”

“Yes,” Regis chuckled. “ _We're_ heading there.”

Katarina became uneasy in response to the sly smile, but stubbornly pursed her lips and nodded slightly.

They spent a week on the journey, setting off at dawn or moving a few hours before dusk, avoiding the destructive unbearable heat, which the duchess read about only in books, but even so could hardly bear it. According to Regis, such a climate was not unusual in these lands; on the opposite, it has become even cooler now than in previous seasons.

At first, Katarina felt uncomfortable in men's clothes and every time she cautiously sought condemnation in the glances of people passing by, but those did not care about her worries. And then it turned out that the shirt perfectly replaces the corset; in pants you do not need to worry about a raised hem or a stained petticoat; and the heat is even more tolerated in such clothes.

“Neunreuth is a big city,” Katharina repeated with a sigh, furtively wiping sweat from her tanned forehead. “Is it reasonable for me to go there if they are looking for me?

“It's easier to get lost in the hustle and bustle than on the overlooked road or in the village where everyone knows each other,” objected Regis, who looked as fresh and calm as the morning dew on the leaves of the lungwort. “But there have been no pursuers on our trail for a long time, and therefore there is nothing to be afraid of.”

He prudently kept silent about how he put into the minds of the stunned soldiers the idea of leaving Katarina in a completely opposite direction, but she herself did not argue, loyal to her companion that had never betrayed her naive trust.

However, the closer they were to the goal, the less Regis went into conversations and explanations, only frowning wearily when he thought that he wasn’t looked at or, perhaps, simply forgot about his companion. Katarina, in turn, nervously bit her lip, thinking about what would become of her when Regis found what he was looking for and said goodbye to her. In a perfectly polite tone, of course, but irrevocably.

“Are you afraid of something?” She asked bluntly as Regis, putting his hand to his forehead, peered into the distance for several minutes, and then frowned even harder.

“Afraid?” It seemed that this question led him to extraordinary gaiety. 

“Worried is more likely. I have not spoken of this before, dear Katarina, but I am going to Neunreuth following the trail of an old friend, with whom we parted a few weeks ago. And I don't like it.”

Regis kicked the horse with his heels and rode ahead a few feet, pushing Katarina and her filly behind his back. His horse paced confidently with its hooves, shaking its head displeasedly as the rider urged to go faster, distracting him from the sweet grass. Regis once admitted that he usually travels on foot, so one should not expect a special skill in horse riding from him, and half an hour later he galloped his horse so dashingly after the outlandish bird that Katarina barely kept up with him.

“Ravens…” Katarina breathed. “You are following the trail of the ravens!”

“Your observation does you credit,” Regis said absently, without a drop of irony, now staring at the ground.

Before them were the city walls and the old churchyard that had grown nearby. In any case, it had to be a cemetery, because the rays of the setting sun danced warmly on the granite tombstones. On the other hand, Katarina did not see a single, even the most lopsided cross, but it was also logical - what kind of evil spirits would allow to surround the cemetery with sacred power?

“Ravens are the messengers of death,” Katarina said slowly. “Are you afraid that your friend was overtaken by death?”

“I rarely fear anything, really, however, something else worries me,” Regis pointed towards a tree by the road, unremarkable and dry from the heat. “There are residues of clotted blood on the bark. And there,” he pointed behind his back, “I found the remains of a rabbit, completely drained of blood. It suggests…”

“...that Hell is full of creepy creatures,” Katarina shrugged.

“Let's just say, I have not met this fiend in any grimoire or bestiary, and it is unfamiliar to me. And this, believe me, is an impressive cause for concern.”

While Regis brooded over the situation, a coachman, in whose cart the wine barrels bounced dully on the bumps, left both of them behind. He drove past, whistling a song carelessly, and did not even look at the travelers, from which Katarina concluded that there was no war in these parts for a very long time, since the locals can afford such negligence. Generally speaking, she imagined wars in hell differently, as well as a peaceful life, but with the exception of Beauclair, which smelled of blood and smoke, the rest of the land looked much cuter.

Meanwhile, Regis dismounted and half disappeared into the bushes. His funny gray head sank down as he began to examine something on the ground. Katarina walked behind him to find a severed and swollen foot in Regis's lean hands a few moments later.

“See, Katarina?”

Regis showed her the unsightly remains, and she only waved her hand in disgust in front of her nose, though not frightened in the slightest. Once she helped her mother perform delivery, which happened to one of the maids at the most inopportune moment, and a baby crawling out of the womb looked much nastier. And the stench that rose from the accidental feces of the unfortunate woman in labor was even worse.

“Something is wrong in this land and, judging by the degree of rotting of this wonderful foot, it has been a long time ago,” Regis continued.

“Besides, look closely, it is completely bloodless.”

“Someone sucked blood from this foot?” Katharina was surprised.

“Rather, from its owner. And then he tore it apart. Or cut it. Very sloppy, hasty work.”

“Could they be the blue demons?”

“Drowners are found exclusively near water bodies, which give them their origin, and here it is several miles to the nearest river. No, it was a creature that eats blood, not carrion.”

"A vampire," Katarina nodded affirmatively, as if she were a sophisticated demonologist.

“I'm afraid you're wrong here, too,” Regis sighed sadly. “Intelligent vampires are not in the habit of leaving such eloquent footprints behind them, and their lesser brethren, as a rule, eat meat entirely or take it to the nest to feed the family. In addition, the edges of the flesh are too straight. These are neither claws, nor fangs.”

“You know a great deal, Regis,” Katarina said without a trace of fear.

“In some areas,” the man smiled softly, continuing to hold the severed foot in his hands like a sleeping baby, and then in the most unexpected way he suddenly wrapped it in a cloth and stuffed it deeper into his own bag of herbs. “We'll need it as evidence.” He was about to climb into the saddle, when suddenly turned to the girl with a deep sympathetic expression: “I must apologize, Katarina. During my long wanderings in the company of men, I completely forgot that to show such a specific sight to a noble lady is mauvais ton. Forgive my manners.”

“Oh, this is a mere trifle,” she waved her hand. “Once I accompanied my mother to the execution of a criminal. At the last moment, when the executioner had already raised the ax, the poor fellow jerked, managed to escape, and his shoulder instead of his neck was cut open. A terrible panic began, he tried to escape from the platform, and then he was excised with carabelas, like the herring that birds torment when we hang it in the trees.”

“Herring?” Regis raised his eyebrows. “What's the point in hanging herring?”

“What do you mean?” Katharina was amazed. “Many poor people eat it during the fast and are happy to say goodbye to it on Easter. Just imagine - forty days of eating only herring, bread and vegetables! They hang fish in the trees as a sign of the end of the fast, but as for me, they just can't look at it anymore.”

“Your world has quite unique customs, Katarina.”

"They're not all that unique," she sighed. “But you are right, how can residents of hell possibly know about Christian laws?”

Regis's lips curved into a cheerful grin, his eyes narrowed slightly, but Katarina did not notice all this. She tried again to master the horse. Both of their horses were getting worse every day, and Regis used unknown mixtures of crushed herbs to calm the animals, which made Katarina herself dizzy. Finally, the speckled horse obediently bowed her head, crunched with a sweet bagel, and succumbed to the entreaties of the rider.

“Sorry, Regis. I usually get along with horses.”

“Another world, Katarina,” he sighed a little sadly and added something incomprehensible: “Another custom.”

They entered the city very soon, at dusk, in a long line of charioteers and merchants who were heading to Neunreuth from all over the world. Each of them could boast of something exquisite: Katarina saw silk scarves embroidered in the Turkish style, and amazingly beautiful pottery with outlandish patterns, and again - barrels of wine with noticeable emblems of workshops and guilds. In the old days, she had only to ask papa, and any of these little things would already be in her hands, but now Katarina felt a devastating powerlessness. Nothing in this world belonged to her, not even the spare clothes Regis had procured for her in the previous village.

The rooftops of Neunreuth blazed in the carmine sun, and the air was full of hubbubs and the puffy city smells pounding in the nose. People scurried along the narrow cobbled streets, calling out like a flock of daws, laughing and snapping. Under the windows of even the least impressive house there were pots with bright flowers of all colours, and from somewhere far away the cries of merchants and tart floral aromas were heard. And of course - music. Wonderful interweaving of harp and lute, caressing the ear.

“Pleasant city,” Regis said, nodding with satisfaction. “There are unusually strong smells here.”

“What's good about that?” Katarina was surprised, but Regis, apparently, did not hear her in the general din. In general, he was a person who would not answer the question only in two cases: either he did not hear it, or he is dead.”

“Look!” he pointed in the direction of empty colourful tents with almost childish joy. “This is the world’s famous flower market of Neunreuth. Even beautiful Nazair roses are brought here, although they do not always survive the transportation… In the morning we will definitely have the opportunity to look at them. As for now…”

What should have happened after the mysterious "for now" remained a mystery for Katarina, since the driver with a team of two horses who had taken off from the right did not calculate the speed and crashed into the crowd. He immediately shouted, was echoed by other angry people and horsemen, and the general anger seized people one by one, like falling dominoes.

Katarina's horse, already nervous in recent days, reared up, tapped off with its hooves, first on someone's forehead, and then on the pavement - and carried away. Katarina grabbed the withers with her hands and pressed herself to her neck. The heart jumping out of her chest, blood was pounding in her temples, while the crazed filly flew away, not making out the road, knocking down bystanders, shops and flower pots along the way. It stopped only a few minutes later, bumping into an overturned cart, kicked up and rushed to the side, leaving the rider to wallow on the dusty road.

By the time, Katarina somehow brushed herself off and regained consciousness, the red-hot sunset haze had faded away, giving way to a devilish night. The windows of houses in this part of the city did not glow with a welcoming light, there were no smells of herbs, no hubbub, no kind conversations over frothy beer - it was dark and quiet here, like in a scorched wasteland.

“Well, well…” Katarina whispered softly, stepping up to the filly that stood nearby, lifting her sides and squinting her eyes unkindly, but no longer kicked from fatigue. “So you and I got into trouble, my dear,” the girl quietly muttered, looking around.

Alone, completely alone. On the outskirts of hell!

The two of them walked along quiet streets full of broken utensils. Torn rags, shattered dishes and the remains of wooden fences were scattered everywhere. The extinguished lantern swayed with a melancholy creak on a bracket bent by someone's evil will, and beneath it a wilted orchid flower gleamed lonely in the black mud that had spilled out from a cracked flowerpot.

Katarina walked cautiously, trying not to think about anything mystical, but to her mind came the chilling story of her maid Agnieszka when she asked her mother to let her go out of town to her beloved in the evening. In the morning, Agnieszka was found naked and tormented on a country road by passing merchants - they brought her body, but Katarina’s mother strictly forbade to look at her, and Agnieszka was buried in a closed coffin.

Katarina felt stupid, because curiosity inside seemed stronger than anxiety. She looked at the outlandish writings on the signs that she had noticed long ago - a strange pagan language that still sounded like her native Polish. The windows in the houses, now dim, turned out to be coloured, like transparent candies, and the flowers in the trays were unfamiliar, but extraordinarily beautiful.

This way she stumbled upon the first corpse; a man with severed hands and a ripped throat. He lay surrounded by soft creamy lush inflorescences, arms and legs outstretched and looked at the sky with empty eye sockets. Katarina immediately turned to the side, flinching from the quiet clatter of her own horse's hooves, but just a few meters later, another shock awaited her - another two men. By their appearance: noble sons of some worthy gentleman, dressed in expensive clothes and jewelry. Very young, amazed at something, and irrevocably dead.

Her senses told her to run, but the more noise the heels of Katarina's boots made, the more distinctly the heart sank. Nearby, the part of the churchyard that Katarina had seen at the entrance to the city seemed so inopportune. Probably, in the fall of night, demons came here to taste human flesh, and all these people simply did not have time to hide in their houses until sunset. And she, miserable, was brought here so inappropriately in the dark hour, and it is not known whether she will have time to get away.

A small shadow swooped down from the black sky, and Katarina was alarmed, recoiled, but recognized the ever memorable bird in the newly arrived guest. The raven began busily digging into the eye sockets of the second boy, and Katarina, not remembering herself, rushed forward.

“Ugh! Get lost, evil spirit!”

The raven, of course, disappeared, as Katarina came up with an excessively idiotic thought: if Regis was following the trail of birds, and she follows the trail of one, then sooner or later they must meet.

“Wait!” Immediately she cried, taking off into the saddle. “Wa-ait!”

The raven seemed to be really frightened by the eccentric, silly girl, as it began to flap its wings more often and stronger, and began to fly in circles. Katarina followed him as best she could, moving, rather intuitively and pushing the horse, but after a minute, she lost sight of the bird. Her grief was short, for a whole flock flew up from a nearby alley, and Katarina resumed her pursuit. The filly trotted forward with all its strength, while the city mockingly gave Katarina the go-around. She did not notice how she had already passed twice the eyeless dead man and two numb youngsters, but a strange quiet roar behind her at once brought her to her senses.

She looked around, finding nothing behind her but the monsters drawn in her imagination, and kicked the horse with her heels with all her force. Her horse, which had been galloping before with its last strength, now seemed to have grown wings. It was restlessly spinning ears and running on its own, without guidance. In the distance, the birds appeared again, and when Katarina found herself galloping along a completely ordinary street, lit by lanterns, a yellow copper moon had already risen in the sky. It was getting dark here quickly.

“Wow…” she sighed, looking behind herself.

There was only a blackened twilight haze, impenetrable, like a veil that divided the city into two parts. Katarina hastily turned her head back to bump her clean forehead into the low sign.

Bang!

She lost her balance and for the second time in a day flew out of the saddle, in which she usually held herself perfectly. Still better than shaking in a shabby carriage with hard springs and beating all your nature on every bump.

This time, on the road of the sunny and hot dukedom, a viscous puddle was even found - of course, the only one in the whole neighbourhood. Both pants and boots were all smeared with mud, and Katarina just hissed through her teeth, wiping herself off until she looked up. On that ill-fated signboard there was unambiguously painted a melted candle stub, but in the glass case... from the many shelves from under the dusty glass a great number of figurines looked at Katarina - one more beautiful than the other.

Little princesses in elegant dresses worked out to the last ruffle; brave knights with swords and spears; strange winged and toothy monsters with gnarled jaws.

The amazing wax figures seemed to have frozen in motion at the very second when Katarina looked at them, and now they were waiting for her to turn away. She approached the glass, fascinated, put her hand on the cold surface and stuck her nose to it like a child. Of course, she and her girlfriends used to tell fortune with wax, and in the city, there were several skillful waxmen, but she had never met such mastership.

A nearby door slammed, but Katharina woke up only after hearing the familiar mocking croak. At first, peripheral vision caught a strangely black lump, and then, finally, snatched out a whole image.

It was not a man - a raven. Dressed in a raven-colored leather cloak and matching hair. Only silvery gray strands in him gave away his human nature, but no man simply could be so devilishly handsome and no normal person would have a cursed bird with an inquiring bulging eye sitting on his shoulder.

Of course, the devil himself was standing before Katarina.

She saw no other explanation, since that was how she imagined him.

The devil was silent, and his eyes were blue - an illusion and deception, for sure.

The devil looked at her thoughtfully and gloomily from head to toe, looked at the horse, and then raised an eyebrow in surprise - Katarina at that moment was already frantically crossing herself and chanting a prayer. He took a step towards her, but she only stepped back and began to sing even louder, stretching the vowels and flashing belligerent eyes. She clutched a silver cross in her fingers.

“Don't come any closer, evil spirit!” Katarina barked loudly as the devil stirred again. “Perhaps I am a sinner before the Lord, but in His mercy He will not leave his daughter alone to fight his most bitter enemy!”

“If you shout like that, young lady, you’ll wake up the whole neighborhood,” the devil said hoarsely, and Katarina stopped short. His voice, too, turned out to be beautiful and also human. “They will be worse than the devil. And you don't need to defend yourself against me. I will be immensely grateful to you if you leave me alone.”

His manner of speech was low and suave, and he looked a little sad, so Katarina doubted her guesses for a second, but told herself not to soften ahead of time.

The devil, meanwhile, tried to go into the house, but Katarina's filly blocked his way. Or to be precise, it fell right on the porch at the open door, and only now did the girl notice something terrible - blood was oozing from the belly of the animal, disgustingly torn.

“Did you do that?!” She exclaimed, rushing either to the horse or to the devil.

“Not at all,” he said gloomily. “It wasn't me. Where are you from?”

Katarina shrugged her shoulders and cautiously gestured behind the devil's back.

“And what are you after here?”

“Nothing. The horse carried, and I was at that place. And then here.”

“Now, that I call a meaningful response,” the man bent over the horse, sighed skeptically, glancing at Katarina, and nodded toward the door.

“I'm not going there.”

“Come, if you want to live. Some piece of trash is wandering around, and this is not the first time.”

“But you’re the devil. Don't you know who you yourself have sent to the city?”

“I’m Dettlaff,” the man sighed. “If you want to stay outside, be my guest.”

The devil-Dettlaff easily moved the horse from the road (like any demonic creature he possessed remarkable strength) and went inside, just like that, with a raven on his shoulder. The second bird that landed on the eaves of the bench was now looking at Katarina point-blank, like an unintelligent child, and scraped its claws against the metal. Katarina had no intention of trusting such a terrible person, whatever he called himself, but an eerie piercing howl that sounded nearby changed her mind.

Dettlaff wandered gloomily around the damp house, gazed into the small open window near the ceiling and sometimes glanced at Katarina. She cradled a mug of tea in her palms, warmed herself with it, but was in no hurry to drink.

“Whose handkerchief is this?” He asked sparingly as Katarina began furtively brushing the dirt off her face and hands.

“One kind man.”

“And when was the last time you saw this kind _man_?”

“At sunset, at the entrance to the city.”

Dettlaff sighed and shook his head.

“How old are you?” He asked, looking sullen.

“What do you care?” she flushed and immediately got embarrassed. It is not appropriate to be rude towards a house owner, and his guilt has yet to be proved. “Eighteen.”

“Oh… He is now drawn to young ones,” he muttered.

“What? Do not even think! You won't be able to seduce me!”

Dettlaff martyrly closed his eyes, and then turned abruptly, slashed through the air with the flaps of his cloak, and simply left without saying hello or goodbye.

“What a blockhead,” said Katharina. “Never mind Satan himself.”

He was absent at first five minutes, then ten, and then Katarina was completely bored. Carefully, trying not to creak the floorboards, she got up from her chair, putting down her mug, and began to wander around the devil's den. The inside smelled of dampness, herbs and wax. Little artful wax figures, which he apparently used to lure innocent children inside and devour their souls, gazed sympathetically at Katarina from shelves and cupboards. There was also a staircase leading to the second floor, but the opening was blackened in pitch darkness, and she did not dare to go there. You never know what he keeps there - chains or the shredded corpses of those killed, like that severed foot. Or maybe he collects other people's eyes that ravens bring him.

She wandered from one shelf to another and did not immediately feel that there was no air draft on the floor from the wide-open front door.

“Now, Katarina, I hardly expected to find you safe and sound,” the familiar voice behind her, sighed with relief.

It seemed as if it came from the door itself, but when she turned abruptly, she almost crashed into a familiar cloak and a strap thrown over the chest, and this tart spicy smell of medicinal herbs...

“Regis!” She exclaimed, forgetting everything, and for just one instant she threw her arms around his neck, immediately recoiling. “Excuse me, I... Regis, he is behind your back!” She held out her finger in an accusatory gesture.

Dettlaff raised his eyebrows in the familiar manner and gave a look at Regis.

“I've told you. She thinks I'm the devil.”

“You two know each other?” Katarina was amazed.

“You see, dear Katarina,” Regis, meanwhile, made absolutely no attempt to step back, and now his anthracite eyes were impermissibly close, studying her and peering into her insides. “This is the old friend I was looking for,” he finished with an apologetic sigh.

Katarina looked dumbfounded from one to the other.

“A friend…?”

“Yes. He could seem to you a poor sort of person, but believe me, I vouch for him in front of you and I ask you not to fall into conclusions. Alien guise can be deceiving.”

Half an hour later, Katarina, Regis, and Dettlaff were sitting in a wax shop around a rickety old table, sipping tasteless tea and saying nothing. Katarina was completely discouraged that a person of this kind could be a friend of someone as noble and virtuous as Regis. Dettlaff remained indifferent to her thoughts, which were beautifully displayed on her face, although she did not know it, but sometimes he grinned strangely, glancing sideways at Regis, who remained somewhat dejected due to the misunderstanding that had occurred.

“Are you in trouble?” Katarina finally asked cautiously, addressing Dettlaff directly at the cost of an incredible effort. “Ravens were flying in your trail. Has Regis come to save you?”

“No,” Dettlaff grinned openly. “Regis just has a bad habit of getting into other people's business without asking.”

“I ask you not to vilify me for no reason, my friend,” Regis protested. “I saw very strange footprints along the way, I managed to ask some people in the city about what was happening while I was looking for Katarina, and I want to note that you, Dettlaff, are once again at the epicenter of mysterious events.”

“We will talk about this later. Now stop playing around. And finally explain to the girl where she really was, until she began to rush at people with an aspen stake.”

It was the strangest conversation of her life. Regis, who maintained a calm and friendly tone, described with his characteristic artistry that the world in which Katarina found herself was not at all hell. Moreover, it had not the slightest connection with the world from which she came, and in general - all this is nothing more than a bad combination of circumstances. That the demons here are not demons at all, people have lived here from time immemorial and do not atone for any sins, and even on the contrary - they quite enjoy life for themselves, make plans, and raise children. That the one she killed was not any messenger of the devil, but an ordinary sorcerer - yes, just a sorcerer, and that magic is a common thing here. Even a respected one.

This hit Katarina the hardest. If she had killed a mystical creature with a black soul, she could justify herself, but it turned out that she simply killed a living person. The same as herself.

She pondered this for a long time, bit her lip and refused to look at the two companions, one of whom looked at her with sympathy, and the other with an incomprehensible mockery, neither kind nor evil, as at a restive kitten.

Regis must have been right in saying that she was hasty in her conclusions. And, it must be, since such a kind person as he stands up for Dettlaff, it means that he does not pose the slightest danger either to her or to people. Katarina almost resigned herself to this thought, or forced herself to resign, even smiled with a restrained smile in response to Regis's gaze…

And then she casually looked down at the stub of a candle, which was throwing dancing spots of light on the walls, and noticed something else. Her heart seemed to stop at that moment.

Neither Dettlaff nor Regis cast shadows.


	4. Mirror, mirror on the wall…

Regis paced up and down the lower floor thoughtfully, fiddling with the strap of his bag. His gaze wandered over the line of figurines, one of which Dettlaff was casting from wax right now. It was tart and stuffy. Katarina slept on the second floor on a narrow bed, and from time to time her even breathing was interrupted by a barely audible murmur.

“Have you decided to become a Toussaint knight, Regis?” Dettlaff chuckled, not looking up from his work.

“I only gave the girl help and support in trying times,” Regis sighed. “Indeed, it did not cost me even a small drop of strength. What's wrong with that?”

“You tell me.”

“I’m not going to pretend that I don’t understand what you’re driving at, but your speculations are completely premature.”

“Premature?”

“Groundless, I wanted to say. Of course they are groundless…” Regis smiled softly. “Katarina is an interesting conversationalist with a unique history of her home world. I see no reason to deny myself the pleasure of getting to know a new culture.”

“Get to know a new culture, of course. Even in your youth it was not called that.”

“You have become unusually mean, my friend. As I warned you, her death did not bring you comfort. Only bitterness and emptiness.”

Dettlaff raised his head briefly, his eyebrows raised.

“Regis, spare me the comforting speeches. I'm not Katarina.”

“You're right,” Regis agreed sadly and looked with interest at Dettlaff's latest creation - a rearing wolf figure and a girl in a robe, hood, and a basket in her hands. “Tell me what kept you at Neunreuth. You were going far south, but after a month you settled in a wax shop.”

“The same as you,” Dettlaff shrugged. “Have you seen the streets in the western part of the city?”

“Briefly. I drove by, but did not dare to go there at night. They stink of witchcraft.”

“And the corpses of animals on the roads nearby the city? At the churchyard?”

“A sad sight,” Regis nodded. He opened the bag and showed Dettlaff his ‘evidence’. “As you can see, not only of animals, my friend.”

Dettlaff frowned looking inside and nodded.

“A familiar limb. I found its owner in the city. In less than three days after my arrival, I found at least five dead. They were lying in a cordoned-off block, and stank for miles. I had to clean up, because the locals did not want to touch the dead for some reason. And this,” he pointed at Regis’s bag, “is the work of necrophages. I drove off a few, but, apparently, they had already managed to feed.”

“Necrophages risked to come so close to the city?” Regis closed the bag, and an excruciating stench lurked in the aromas of dried herbs.

“Something attracts them. Not only the smell of decaying corpses - there are too few bodies for that. Katarina's horse, for example, fell from the claws of a ghoul.”

"But he didn't touch Katarina?"

“It's amazing, isn't it?” Dettlaff grinned unkindly, without raising his head.

“So the attack comes from the city.” Regis sat down at the wobbly table, watching with interest as Dettlaff began to grind the wolf's fangs with a thin knitting needle.

“Exactly. People are whispering. In the western part, there was a rather rich and well-protected area. No one expected danger and not a single culprit was found. Not even traces of a struggle. The current head has dispatched several soldiers to search for the killers, but there are few people. The war has devastated Nilfgaard more than most people think.”

“So you settled down here and took up an observation position.”

“Yes.”

“I did not expect from you such a clear self-sacrifice for the good of humanity, my friend.”

“Leave your irony. I don't need to get involved in human squabbles, but there are rumors of vampires. Especially after Beauclair.” Dettlaff winced. “You and I were not the first to discover the bloodless animals. This was done by merchants on the roads. At the moment, when people’s patience overflows, they will take us seriously, as it was with the elves, and the weakest will suffer first.

“However, this has not happened yet.”

“Because in all the time that I have been here, there has not been a single new corpse. An extraordinary coincidence,” Dettlaff chuckled.

“Perhaps someone really desperately wants to bring human anger upon us, my friend. Or maybe he's just imitating us out of his inexplicable motives.” Regis sighed. “Human nature is amazing and extraordinary. They are ready to kill ones of their own kind, only to destroy a common enemy.”

“If this is the work of humans.”

Dettlaff admired the figures, carefully clamped between his own long fingers, then put the wolf aside, and mercilessly unscrewed Little Red Riding Hood's head, crushing the soft material in his fingers, and threw the lump back into the bucket. Regis shook his head.

“The closer we are to people, the more problems we have,” Dettlaff grumbled.

“We are only witnessing events that one day, perhaps, will enter the historical records.”

“Yes,” Dettlaff nodded gloomily. “They will definitely be included in the records.”

A step creaked at the top, then another, and Katarina's face, framed in black curls, appeared on the stairs. Her careful steps, which she sincerely thought were inaudible, were sensed by both vampires a moment ago, but, as any experienced hunter knows, the main thing is to wait for the right moment.

“Did we wake you up, Katarina?” Regis turned, smoothly and unhurriedly, like a man.

“No, I…” She pursed her lips, scowling at the familiar face with a bit of paternal concern. “I didn't sleep very well. I dreamed of the dead.”

Katarina came down and carefully walked around Regis in a circle, looking at him strangely and incredulously, and cast an uncertain look out the window through which the rare dawn rays were already pouring, following straight to the two men at the table. A figurine of a grinning wolf on the edge of the table caught Katharina's attention, and she forgot for a second, staring at the skillful work with an admiring gleam in her eyes.

“So you saw them. The dead.” Dettlaff tore her out of her thoughts, and Katarina's face immediately drooped, like white paper in the rain. His voice sounded hoarse, as if a tree was being scratched with sandpaper.

“At least four.” Katarina crossed her arms over her chest, and her fingers trembled finely from the morning chill. “All crippled. Without eyes. But they were probably just crows.”

“What then?”

“I remember only a crazy ride, and after - someone killed my horse, but I didn't even notice it.”

“Your horse was wounded much earlier. She managed to bleed badly, you just didn't notice.”

“How do you know?” Katarina looked angrily at Dettlaff, who now again seemed to her as a being otherworldly and unkind. But, worst of all, so did Regis.

“An instinct,” Dettlaff snapped. “However, despite everything, you survived.”

His gaze screwed her somewhere in the region of the bridge of her nose, but when Regis raised his hand, Katarina shook her head sharply, taking a step back.

“I do not understand.”

Her beautiful face twisted thinly with a mixture of fear and arrogant irritation, so badly reminding Dettlaff of the regal gaze of a woman whose heart he ripped open with his own claws, and the vampire became even more furious.

“You see,” he grinned tartly. “You survived, and it's weird. You arrived on a bloody mare from a part of town that was blocked and closed to the public, leaving the corpses there. Where necrophages happened to walk. People are so afraid to go there that they even abandoned their dead. But you came back. Alive. Unharmed.”

“Do you think I am a demon?!”

"Stop it," Regis sighed, and involuntarily winced as Catarina grabbed the silver cross in a desperate gesture. “Your arguments will get you nowhere. And you, my friend,” he turned to Dettlaff, “have become overly suspicious.”

“My suspicion concerns young women, exclusively” Dettlaff replied coldly.

He glanced at the raven that appeared in the window behind Katarina and left the house without saying goodbye. Dettlaff moved so fast that Katarina was for a second bathed in a rush of cold air from the flapping hem of his cloak.

“A broken heart,” Regis sighed after him, “heals much longer than anything else.”

Katarina glanced dubiously at Regis, doubting Dettlaff might have a heart, but said nothing. Regis scared her no less now, though his behavior hadn't changed in the least.

“However, Katarina,” Regis continued, motionless, as if nailed to the floor. “I would really not recommend that you leave this house anytime soon. Nothing good will come of it. And Dettlaff and I intend to study the situation thoroughly.”

He tried to look into Katarina's eyes, but she only dropped her eyelashes briefly, pursing her lips harder than before. She was worried a lot about why the rays of the sun coming across the floor touch Regis, but did not harm him.”

“What should I do?” Katarina sighed, finally, unspeakably happy that she would soon be left alone in the house.

“I brought you some dictionaries and books with engravings to study. You can familiarize yourself with them in our absence.

“Thank you, Regis,” Katarina replied with a weary lowering of her hands, and immediately returned them to their place when a gust of wind blew through the window, tangling in her shirt and hair. “Even though you disguise your orders as kind requests.”

Regis chuckled bitterly, then walked up like a cat and in one gallant movement threw his own herb-scented cloak over Katarina's shoulders, leaving himself in a lead-black shirt. Katarina's gaze caught on a strong neck, and she immediately averted her eyes.

“It gets cold in the mornings,” Regis said even more gently, lifting his bag from the floor and securing a strap to his chest. “The books are on the table. Dettlaff has some food, and I left some provisions. We'll be back no later than dusk.”

A scorching hot afternoon in a matter of hours warmed the damp wooden house to the ground, and now it became even more stuffy inside. Katarina hastily flipped through all those books with monsters that Regis brought, in an attempt to find at least some image of the damned women that she met in Beauclair, or at least the beasts that were called bloodsuckers among the common people. But only grotesque pictures of the strangest creatures looked from the pages, similar to those with which Agnieszka frightened her at girls' gatherings by a lonely candle deep after midnight.

The noise of the street, kind and worldly, beckoned to go out into the street, but Katarina held on with all her strength, biting into unfamiliar runes and wandering her finger along the dilapidated pages. She had never known this feeling, familiar only to uneducated servants, unable to read or write, and now she felt the world thrust another thorn into her with a grin. Nevertheless, these agonizing efforts at least distracted from all other thoughts.

“Master Durnval, master Durnval!” they knocked on the door as if they were in a fire. The voice was masculine and loud. “Save, master! I completely forgot about my daughter’s birthday, and she loves wax crafts. Maybe sell one on credit? I'll give it all by the end of the week!”

Katarina unconsciously clutched Regis's cloak, half-slipped from its rounded shoulder, as if into an invisibility cloak, squinting at the door, but the man was not going to leave. He drummed even harder and more desperately. True, Dettlaff never rushed to go out to meet people and pulled to the last, or maybe the guest was just persistent by nature.

“Just the simplest, master! The one in the window with ruffles! Please, master!”

Katarina glanced sideways at the attractive figurine blanks that huddled on an old chest of drawers. Yeah, the wax figurines, no doubt. Surely, they contain considerable witchcraft, capable of taking possession of the soul and mind of the one to whom they were presented. And she sits here, as if chained, and waits for the arrival of the two men who lied to her, then to buy into another kind smile.

Katarina got up abruptly and, finally throwing off her cloak, confidently walked to the entrance, as usual arrogantly raising her strong-willed chin.

"Ma... Oh," the man breathed as she decisively opened the door and stared into his chest. “Good day, m’lady,” the fellow muttered somewhat uncertainly, looking down in search of her face. “You must be the master’s daughter, aren’t you? Maybe you can sell me something?”

The man's voice became quite ingratiating, and Katarina was embarrassed. It is not appropriate to refuse a sincere request to a kind person, but what could you give him such a gift so as not to doom his daughter to suffering?

“Here,” she picked up a wolf figure from the table, not yet finished, and therefore not bewitched. “Maybe this will suit you?”

The man looked in surprise at the grinning face, scratched the back of his head, and then suddenly nodded to Katarina’s and his own surprise.

“Yes, why not! My daughter always wanted to become a hunter, she learned to shoot from a bow. Let her have a wolf. And then all these princesses and duchesses. Nothing good about them.” Katarina was already offended, but the man suddenly rummaged in his pockets and, in addition to a pair of coins, put a pocket mirror into the girl's narrow palm.

“Do not take it amiss, m’lady, and tell Master Durnval that I will bring everything in. Now I am broke, but you, so good-looking, maybe you will like a mirror?”

Katarina smiled uncertainly as the man grabbed the craft from her hands, bowed deeply and quickly retreated up the street. She looked doubtfully at his retreating back, not understanding why she had been so wary of him until she felt how tightly her stomach was twisting: the smell from the man was floating strong, vigorous, knocking right off her feet, but this was not surprising - judging by his clothes, he worked at the forge. But the subtle tart scent of flowers, which Katarina was surprised to find high on the balcony of the opposite house, she could not have smelled it from the door.

She shook her head, amazed by this illusion, and just as decisively slammed the door. Behind her back.

Burning irritation flared up inside. Not only was she imprisoned in a battered shack, like some kind of beggar, they still hadn’t really explained anything to her and they put her under house arrest. If she wanted to really understand where she was, she would have to understand everything herself.

Her skin had darkened a lot during her long wanderings, but in the midst of tanned people in hats with feathers and colorful dresses, Katarina still looked like a rare orchid on a chamomile field. Closer to the center, more and more foreign guests began to appear: light, swarthy, completely black, of very different heights and weights, and Katarina quickly got lost among them as a brisk squirrel.

Regis was right - the smells of Neunreuth would do honor to any capital. A cacophony of aromas flowed from everywhere in thin streams, teasing the sense of smell, and for a moment Katarina was completely nauseated, and after that an unfamiliar and therefore painful sensation came. Hunger.

She hadn't eaten anything worthy since... well, since her first day here. The delicate stomach refused to consider the stew that Regis cooked at the halts as food, but after a difficult night it completely rebelled. And the smell of sausages from distant counters, as luck would have it, beckoned her. Katarina walked around all the meat rows, preferring to stare at the delicacies from afar for lack of money, and finally found a cute baker with a flower wreath around her neck.

“What do you wish, beauty?” She smiled, waving her hand over the rich variety of all possible buns, pies, cakes and pretzels.

“Is there anything with meat?” Katarina asked plaintively, already knowing the answer - the sweet smell of muffin and spicy meat tickled her nostrils.

“Sure thing!” the baker laughed.

Katarina looked at the coins in her hand and sadly held them out on her open palm, trying, nevertheless, to be confident. The merchant's face stretched out for a moment, but looking at the haggard face of the girl, she just waved her hand, grabbed the coppers and handed Katarina an excellent piece of pie with cabbage and minced meat.

“Thank you,” sighed the duchess, who for the first time acted as a beggar, and hastened to retreat far away from her own shame and pitying eyes.

She walked, sinking her teeth into the mouthwatering pie, and examined thoughtfully the cornices of the roofs, on which black birds sat, who had not left her alone since her... death? .. Whatever Regis had told her last evening, she had no faith in his words. Perhaps, from his point of view, it was a different world, but Katarina saw no inconsistency in the fact that both hell and heaven were located in separate universes. In the end, somehow she got here, which means that there is that connecting thread-path along which people like her have passed.

“Look where you are going!” in the commotion, a rider in black armor almost rode her over, all overgrown and terribly furious. “Sorcerer Lord Dragorn Gorgranski is riding this road!” he jabbed his finger at the luxurious carriage. In the same one, Katarina's husband came to church for the wedding.

Katarina barely had time to remove her foot from the path of the armored man and squeeze the bitten pie to her.

“Be merciful to the girl, Valiot,” softly came from the gilded womb, and for a moment a velvet curtain in the color of knightly armor stirred. “She was just admiring the city beauties.”

Shining bright blue eyes flashed, and the midday light spilled over the sharp chin and a noticeable dimple. And then the man moved back, as if burned by the sun, and disappeared into the shadows.

Katarina's mind clicked.

Gorgranski?

The carriage had already gone up the street, fervently jingling bells on a horse-drawn carriage and jumping on the pavement.

“Tell me,” Katarina said quietly, gently taking the half-blindly squinting old woman in a kerchief under her elbow and helping her to cross the street. “Do you know anything about a certain sorcerer Dragorn Gorgranski?”

“Sure, child,” she muttered, gratefully leaning on the hand that was offered. “The two brothers. One was feisty, like an echidna, but he seems to have been impaled in Beauclair by vampiric entities. And his younger brother Dragorn is a bright and kind child, but very naive. They say, he is looking for his brother's killer, but as soon as in our city some kind of dirty trick started, he decided to come here. To provide help.

Katarina forgot about the old woman, and about the crowd, and about the flower market, where she wanted to go so badly, frozen in the middle of the street, and several people immediately bumped into her. Someone apologized, someone covered her with impartial expressions, without looking back.

Papa, while he was alive, often said that quarreling with a man is one thing, and quarreling with a family man is quite another. One can be overcome, but it will not work out so smoothly with the crowd, especially when they desire revenge for their blood.

“What?” Katarina asked gloomily at the raven, who was sitting on the fence and staring mockingly at the market crowd. “I know perfectly well that I’m stupid.”

Monsters, demons, sorcerers, and now this. And everything is in one city.

Following her father's instruction, mother's words came to mind. Evil only seems great until an even greater evil appears and grabs you by the shoulder with a black paw.

Never in her life had Katarina walked so fast, and the heels of her boots echoingly beat off her step along the old pavements. At that time, so distant and close, she walked arm in arm with her mother and her friends, behind her was a train of heavy dress, like a heavy stone tied to her wings, and noble gentlemen bowed respectfully to the family couple. Now Katarina was as free, as she was vulnerable. The streets crawled underfoot, bathed in the sun, but with sunset the darkness creeped into the city again, which she, Katarina, has been marked with since the night when she committed a grave crime against her own soul, without even realizing it. And at the same time, her messenger will come. The brother of the man she killed.

She burst into the waxing house, throwing open the door, like a restless soul, pursued by hellhounds and at the last moment found the church in front of her. Regis hadn't lied - they did return before dusk.

“Did the young lady fail to sit within four walls?” He asked ironically, patching up the holes on his cloak with a thick needle, which she had thrown off immediately. His gaze in a split second tenaciously ran around her from head to toe and relaxed, finding no cause for fear.

Dettlaff grinned vaguely and grimly, not looking in her direction. He stood at the high window, looking up at the sky, and in the sunlight the features of his sculpted face were so sharply and clearly visible that Katarina admired them for a moment.

“I discovered something.” She gasped from the brisk walking she wasn’t used to at all. “Master sorcerer Dragorn Gorgranski, brother of master sorcerer Miron Gorgranski, arrived in the city to help the inhabitants and …” Katarina sighed impulsively.

“In search of his brother’s killer,” finished Regis, wincing as if a ridiculous fly was buzzing in front of his nose. “That was to be expected.”

“Who is Miron?” Dettlaff gave them both an unkind look.

Regis looked expressively at Katarina, but she did not back down and, walking into the center of the room, said clearly, bowing her head:

“The man I killed.”

Dettlaff's eyes, so completely indifferent, suddenly flashed with real boyish fun.

“Killed?..” he asked with some gasp.

“Yes, I took this sin on my soul.”

“Who would have thought. Apparently, you also considered him the devil?”

Katarina pursed her lips, but Dettlaff was right. In her haste of judgment, she made a fatal mistake. Her gaze turned to the floor - right where the shadow of a tall, slightly hunched figure should have been, and which was not. This was somewhat sobering.

“In Katarina’s defense, I would like to point out that the sorcerer left her no choice.” Regis put aside his sewing.

“Of course, you will speak in her defense.”

“There’s something else.” Regis turned away from Dettlaff. “Our search was unsuccessful due the guards not letting us explore the block. We are the new faces here and do not have permission. Of course, we could have made our way into the block in other ways, but in the light of day our actions can be noticed. We'll have to go at night.

“Isn't this a demonic time of day?” Katarina sighed.

“Of course,” Regis didn’t raise an eyebrow as Dettlaff coughed softly, not really trying to hide his grin. “Nevertheless, other methods seem less favorable to us. Besides, in the light of what you’ve discovered... Dettlaff and I unanimously came to the same conclusion. Anyone who creates abominations in the city and its outskirts is associated with magic.”

“Why?” Katharina frowned. “Hasn’t Dragorn just arrived in town?”

“His arrival can only be a coincidence. First, the animals. Killed in a certain way, they could be used in some rituals. Secondly, in the western part of the city, magic is almost tangible. And to deprive those people of blood in such a filigree manner, without damaging their internal organs in any way, was possible only in a miraculous way. The one, who mutilated them, did it after their death and exsanguination, in order to create some appearance of the intervention of vampires. So we think.”

“Appearance?” - Katarina, unable to bear it, grinned. “Is it not credible that vampires…”

She grinned awkwardly, skillfully hiding a flash of fear in the corners of her lips and not knowing that her changed smell had already given her away.

“It is credible,” Regis agreed. “But we didn't find a single one.”

He looked into Katarina's eyes, and for the first time in the whole day she answered in kind. Both were silent. Regis didn’t talk about how he might or might not have found a vampire, and Katarina didn’t ask. Dettlaff stood behind their backs as a mute decoration, similar to the silhouette of an ominous garden scarecrow that from a distance, especially at night, frightens not only birds, but also peaceful travelers.

Katarina shook her head, breaking contact.

“What about necrophages?” She glanced casually at the wax figures as if nothing had happened. “You said that they dragged the dead away.

A barely perceptible second of silence, and Regis nodded as if nothing had happened.

“Necrophages avoid large cities, and therefore their presence in the city is not accidental. Things like hex, curses, any blood spells might attract some of them. The strongest. Or the hungriest. Especially now, when no one comes to the churchyard. But this is just one of the versions.”

Katarina finally sank wearily into a chair across from Regis. Her head was spinning.

“It’s dangerous for you to stay in this city, Katarina,” Regis said slowly, “but I cannot depart and leave this problem unresolved.

“Why?” She raised her eyes, almost saying ‘You're not a man.’

“People died. Even if there have been no new murders for a long time, this does not mean that they will not resume.”

Katarina knew that he was not lying, talking about his concern for the lives of strangers unknown to him, because he once saved herself from an absurd death, but Regis was not sincere either.

She involuntarily squeezed a mirror in her pants pocket, and now wondered how to fulfill her idea and, moreover, go unnoticed. Her stomach, meanwhile, far from thoughtful concerns and conspiracies, gave out a protesting grunt, and Regis immediately raised his eyebrows.

“Dettlaff and I cooked something while awaiting your return.” He deftly got up and placed another bowl of stew in front of Katarina, almost cold, but fragrant with herbs. “Besides, there are baths nearby. The owner owes Dettlaff payment, so you can take advantage of his generous offer.”

The feeling of being sent away from their eyes and the ability to eavesdrop on secret conversations did not disappear, even when the hot water touched her dusty and sweaty skin. Katarina splashed with rapture in the tub, tangling the black strands of her hair with her hands. From the curtained window she could see Dettlaff's house and shop and that narrow window into which he often looked like a princess imprisoned in a tower.

The hot day was cooling down slowly, smoldering in the stuffy air like a swollen candle, sparkling with the sun in the glare of the water. As she tried to relax, the deep sadness, lurking in the corners of memory until this moment, filled the heart with viscous molasses, imprisoning it in hardening amber. Katarina tried to close her eyes, but the face of her mother and her friends immediately appeared in front of them, and the curtains scattered from the wind in the memorable balcony opening. She did not consider how much time had passed since then, but the familiar faces were already beginning to be forgotten, being erased from her memory by faded paint. Katarina bitterly squeezed the edge of the warm tub with her fingers, not noticing how the damp wood was pressed inside.

If there is a chance to return, to appear again before the family, servants and husband... to obey them, bowing her head, pressing her hands to her heart - will she be able to renounce her wish fulfilled for the sake of safety and peace? ..

Katarina, shaking her wet head, cast an absent-minded glance at the wax shop and was stunned. A moment later, having padded on the floor with bare feet, she was already hiding by the window. Under the door stood none other than the guardian, who had snarled at her at noon and was now accompanying a tall, thin man in rich clothes. They knocked briefly, and then Regis appeared in the doorway with an impeccably polite smile on his face. The guests entered the house, and Regis looked up briefly at the window in which Katarina stood, narrowed his eyes strangely for a moment, and disappeared inside. Only then did she realize that she was standing there _au naturel_ , having crawled out of the warm tub.

She walked the entire bathing room up and down, first, blushing with shame, then building chains of ominous thoughts, waiting for the intruders to finally leave, but this took at least half an hour. The sorcerer (and this, most likely, was him) left Dettlaff's house quite pleased and loaded with incomprehensible parchment bundles tied with a ribbon. He walked slowly past the empty street without raising his head.

A few seconds later there was a courteous knock on the door of the bathhouse.

“You can go back, Katarina,” Regis said in a muffled voice, but she could have sworn he hadn't left the house. At least not through the main door.

She hurried, pulling on her annoying clothes (she never wore the same dress for more than one day!), And finally opened the door, hiding her embarrassment behind ostentatious audacity. Wet hair sagged in sad strands and she looked now not so hot, but Regis invariably gallantly gave her a cool palm, habitually running around her with a glance from top to bottom (which now caused completely different emotions in her), and they slowly descended the stairs with him arm in arm as if walking along the park alley.

“What did the guest want?” Katarina asked cautiously, leaning more than necessary on the offered hand.

"Wax," Regis replied calmly. “Mr. Sorcerer, of whose arrival you so kindly notified us in advance, heard from the blacksmith in whose house you were staying about a skillful wax maker, and decided to buy the whole stock from him.”

Katarina kept silent about the fact that she saw the blacksmith personally, because she was very ashamed of her own trick, although she did not regret it in the least.

She only asked “And why?”

“Wax is sometimes needed for some magical rituals. We saw no reason to refuse him, moreover, it would raise suspicion. And I must say, I have not sold wax so expensive yet.”

Regis politely opened the door of the baths for Katarina, and then the door of Dettlaff's house, but the latter was not inside.

“As I mentioned, tonight,” Regis looked down at Katarina thoughtfully, “Dettlaff and I will go to town.”

“But it's dangerous!” Katharina interrupted him not tactfully, putting her hands on her hips. Regis gave her a sly look, suppressing a grin, but his eyes glittered. “Plus, Dragorn…”

“Dragorn will not be able to enter this house. I'll take care of it.”

Katarina swallowed, and once again, that day their gazes crossed, much more frank than words. She didn’t ask how Regis intended to show her "care," and Regis didn’t ask why she didn’t.

“Hence,” Regis continued, “I urge you to never leave this house without a good reason. Or I have to lock you up.”

“If I hadn't gone out into the city today, you wouldn't have learned anything about the sorcerer!”

“Quite right,” Regis bowed his head.

“And if I hadn't stumbled upon Dettlaff then, you would... you would not have found him!”

“Quite possibly.”

“Ah…” Katarina stopped short, feeling the futility of her own efforts, and only shook her head in annoyance.

“I trust you, Katarina,” Regis pointed out, staring at her. “Therefore, I hope for your respect for my requests. At least for this one. I’ll leave the key here on the dresser, but please don’t have to risk it in vain.”

Regis’s tone was nothing like that of the morning. Katarina seemed to be inside a sensational fairy tale about Bluebeard: the door is open, and there is a key, but you dare not enter the room.

Regis nodded, staring straight into her eyes, as if he were reading his thoughts, then slowly put the key where he had promised, and silently left, closing the door tightly.

Katarina tossed and turned from side to side, falling asleep, followed by waking up on the narrow bed, the only one in the whole house. Only now it occurred to her that last night Dettlaff and Regis had apparently slept in a different place, or even on the floor.

Judging by the position of the moon, it was already past midnight, and the meager furnishings of the room darkened ominously in the corners. The chamber pot alone glittered with a convex side in the whitish light, but Katarina did not dare to use it, driven by natural girlish embarrassment. She drove away the thought that she was spending the night in a house in which, besides her, were only two adult men.

But as soon as she closed her eyes, a new round of suffering began, full of nightmares with Dettlaff's bloody face or Regis's grinning face, or, worse, that bruxa that attacked her in the streets of Beauclair. Bad dreams had come to her before, as to any living person, but those that Katarina was seeing now became more real day after day, as if the dream world drank life out of her, gaining flesh and blood. She kept silent about it, not wanting to be an even greater burden, and now wondered if the two inhuman beings who shared the path with her were the cause of these nightmares. Her worst fears were confirmed - there really was not a single mirror in the house. It would not be so scary if the people who lived in it cast a shadow.

Something scraped against the window, and Katarina finally woke up. She sat up abruptly, hastily pulled on her clothes, complaining about the lack of at least some other rag in which to sleep. The sound was no longer repeated, but the dream disappeared, giving way to anxiety. Katarina cautiously crept to the window, looked out, not detecting any obvious danger, and her hand reached by itself to the mirror that was presented to her, which lay next to her. The reflection sighed sadly in response: the cheeks were hollow, there were circles under the eyes, and even the eyes seemed to have dimmed. Katarina shook the mirror but only the uncomfortable walls of the room were blackened behind her.

“Katarina,” Dettlaff's voice said from behind, and the mirror, clinking pitifully, fell to the floor, cracking obliquely. Bad sign.

Dettlaff raised his eyebrows slightly in response to the girl's wild look. She looked at him with round eyes, but no matter how hard she tried, she could not control the inhuman trembling in her fingers.

A second ago Dettlaff was standing right behind her, but there was no one in the mirror except herself, she could swear. And that meant...

“I didn't mean to scare you,” Dettlaff remarked completely indifferently. “Regis asked to inform you that we were leaving in half an hour.”

He, without hiding, winced at his own phrase, completely unhappy with the new role of the postman.

“In half an hour?” Katarina asked dully, trying to hide her excitement.

“Yes. We'll be back soon.”

“This is the worst thing,” barely escaped from her lips, but she only tightened them together.

“You should sleep,” Dettlaff said mercifully, looking at her like a broken toy. “Regis cooked you a sleepy tea. It's down on the table.”

A sleeping potion.

Dettlaff paused, then turned around and headed for the stairs in his own manner - without saying goodbye or expecting parting words.

Katarina immediately ducked into bed, expecting that the man would return and force her to drink the potion, but there was an impenetrable silence in the room, and Dettlaff was in no hurry for some reason. She lay with her eyes closed, squeezing the edges of the blanket under her chin with her fingers and did not see how Dettlaff, who had turned around mockingly, looked at the broken mirror lying nearby, how quietly he smiled and how his eyes flashed badly. And then she fell into a dream, as unnatural as everything that was happening around her, only now there was not a single nightmare in it.


	5. Brotherly bonds

The blackness flashed in small dots of blurry lights that bloom the world like Christmas lights at sacred midnight. In the first second, Katarina suspected a dream responsible for the new images, and then found her eyes wide open. The full moon swung in front of her like a pendulum on an invisible cord, and Katarina, losing her balance, fell to her knees. The palm responded with sharp pain. She lifted it myopically to her very eyes, and the flesh scented generously of fresh blood from the scratched skin.

Katarina shuddered, started to recoil from her own hand, and almost flew down the sloping roof, at the last moment managing to grab the chimney with her hands. She was breathing heavily, kneeling on the heaving center of the roof, and staring dully at the neat houses spread out below. Her lips quivered against her will in an excruciating hysterical spasm as she looked down at her own legs, the hem of her shirt barely covering her bruised and scratched knees.

The world was laughing at her blatantly. Night again, full moon, cobbled street below and... Katarina jumped up in irritation when she heard a mocking croak nearby. She immediately waved her hand to the side, chasing away the bird invisible on the dark roof, and again almost slipped down. The shingles were slippery - it must have been raining recently.

Katarina leaned on her hands, crawled carefully over the center of the roof and crawled just as slowly down to the cornice that hung over the dimly lit street. The muscles were shackled with cold, but the incipient hysteria in her thoughts suddenly blurred, dulled. A quiet, rustling call rose to the head from the tips of the fingers along with the pounding blood, and tiny bells seemed to ring out invitingly inside. Katarina rose slowly without fear, the tiles creaking under her bare feet, and a light gust of wind, laughing, pushed her in the back. In a moment she was already flying down... to slow down at the very ground, as if falling through dense layers of air.

“Good night, Katarina,” said a familiar soft voice.

She was almost not surprised when a young man, whom she suspected under the name of Dragorn, stepped out of the darkness of the canopy. He donned a robe over a hunting suit and looked like a prince as the gold of his long curls splashed over his handsome shoulders. They make fairy ballads about such people and sigh over them on a summer evening in the currant twilight by a fence entwined with flowers.

“You…” Katarina sighed resignedly.

“Me,” Dragorn tilted his head, looking at her bare knees without a trace of lust. “My brother was so thoughtful that he put a mark on you. And I was so prudent that I tied our blood with him with magical bonds as a child... I am sorry that he died so ingloriously, but it does you credit.

He took a step towards Katharina, smiling with a bit of evil snide, but she did not move away.

“He wanted to kill me,” she said defiantly, dumbfounded by the strangeness of what was happening. A terrible fatigue was tossing and turning inside, as if she had not slept for several centuries, and the only feeling she was capable of was the desire for deep sleep.

“Oh, he never wanted anyone dead,” Dragorn said with a grin. “It's just that his test specimens had a habit of dying too early. He was always too impatient to follow through.”

“What do you want?” Katarina asked sharply.

“To look at you,” Dragorn smiled, squatting down in front of Katarina and taking her chin with his long fingers. “He gave you a truly royal gift, and you killed him so thanklessly. What was it? A knife? A spoke? Something pierced his left eye. I felt it.”

“A hairpin.”

Dragorn laughed loosely.

“How exquisite and sophisticated. Come on, Katarina,” he held out his hand to her and, without waiting for a reciprocal gesture, grabbed her palm with his. “It is not good for such a sweet lady to wander in underwear through the streets of this unfriendly city.”

Katarina blushed against her will as she looked at her own legs, but her anger only grew stronger after that. Rising, she tore her hand from the sorcerer's grip and stepped back.

“Do you know what's going on here?” She asked accusingly. “Is it because of you that... people are dying?”

“I don’t have the slightest interest in what’s going on here,” Dragorn shrugged. “I came exclusively for you. And yes. I sent you a call. In a strange way, I could not find you otherwise. Even now, I can barely feel... It must be a spell. Or a broth... Yes, probably a potion... However, I would like to meet the culinary specialist.”

Dragorn, whose voice had almost dropped to a murmur at the end of the monologue, finally looked meaningfully at Katarina. On his handsome young face, she could see the familiar flashes of madness that made the brothers more alike than blood relationship. They were not twins, although Katarina could have sworn that they both had the same blood, as if their souls were woven in the same pattern.

“I don’t think you would want to wander in these streets alone like this,” Dragorn said smoothly and held out his hand to her again - courteously and flatteringly. “A lot can happen. Especially with a girl. Especially with someone so young.”

Katarina sighed painfully and, not without disgust, took hold of the sorcerer's hand again. It was slightly damp, as was his face, which glittered in the light as if he had a fever. Nevertheless, he did not smell at all, as if he were not here. Or maybe it was the fragrant flowers that grew along the cobbled street, and the scent of which made her dizzy.

“Don't you like these lovely roses?” Dragorn narrowed his eyes, moving an elegant hand with carefully done rims of nails to the side.

“What is happening to me?” Katarina's leg slipped, and she almost fell, but Dragorn held on tight. Only his eyes for a moment flashed with anger of a capricious child, from whom one tried to take away one of his many toys.

“You're getting better,” he replied mockingly, hiding his irritation in a luscious smile. “Every hour, every second, from the very moment you fled from the care of Miron… you are becoming the best version of yourself, Katarina.”

His grip on her arm became more painful, such that she even felt the crunch of her own bones.

“How nice that we met on that lovely street, Katarina. It would have been much more difficult for me to find you in such a crowd if you hadn't come yourself,” Dragorn said nonchalantly as they followed the dark, piss-smelling alleys. “Your mark has weakened every day. For obvious reasons. I was afraid of not being in time, but, fortunately, you are very restless. This way, please.” He unceremoniously pushed her through the inconspicuous door in front of him and followed. A sign swayed from above with a hammer crossed with a sword. “This is my humble abode. Make yourself comfortable. Don't shout, please. It will not be difficult for me to suppress your will, but then it will become much more difficult for you to think.”

Inside the house there was a room cluttered with shelves and cupboards with a writing desk in the center; a total mess around - Dragorn did not bother to clean and, obviously, did not allow anyone else to do it. His things were scattered ugly on all surfaces, trying to occupy every inch of space. Thin, hastily rolled candles were burning everywhere, and Katarina was momentarily taken aback by the light pouring from all directions.

“Aren't you afraid to walk around the city at a time like this?” She asked the sorcerer's back while he thoughtfully turned the key in the lock, locking the door from the inside, and then - put it in the breast pocket of the caftan, gently buttoning it with a silver button.

“I am a sorcerer, Katarina,” said Dragorn softly, turning around, and the haze from the candles behind his head looked like a halo. “In order to kill me, you have to take me by surprise, and this is very difficult.

“How do you know my name?”

“Miron gave it to me through a megascope shortly before his death,” the sorcerer responded absently, not bothering to explain the meaning of the outlandish word. “He was very happy about what was happening in Beauclair, talked about it with such sensuality... However, back to the most interesting. To you,” he bowed his head like a bird and screwed his eyes into her.

Katarina grimaced involuntarily, taking a step back and resting her back against the wall. The magician seemed sticky to her, like a fly caught in a honey trap. Meanwhile, his soul exuded a sweet putrid smell. The louder the bells tinkled, suspended by invisible strings inside Katarina's head, the more she felt his ugliness, and that made her stomach twist as though with sour milk.

“You are disgusting,” she burst out.

Dragorn burst out laughing.

“Oh dear Katarina,” he called her in Regis’s manner, but Katarina shivered. “You should be careful with your words, especially when dealing with a sorcerer. On the other hand, what is fear and what is it for?”

“Do you wish to kill me? To avenge your brother's death?”

“Do I make such a primitive impression?” Dragorn raised his eyebrows. “Will you start pouring a rare sample of a potion into the gutter just because it, through someone else's oversight, burned the hands of another potion maker?”

Katarina wanted to object that the comparison of the sorcerer was all the more blasphemous, since he compared not just a human life, but the life of his brother to a burn, but Dragorn did not care much about her moral experiences. He continued to speak softly and measuredly, running his eyes over Katarina's face, as though over the pages of a book.

“You are doing unusually stupid things, meanwhile, you are a guest in this world,” he smiled. “You were supposed to sob, wiping your face with clothes smeared with mud, shaking in hysterics, hugging yourself with your arms, running far, far into the forest to stumble upon a terrible beast and, finally, disappear. But it’s amazing - you don’t look roared, you don’t look frightened and, what is most important, during the days of your wanderings, no one has eaten you. Even for those who were born here, this is an unprecedented achievement.”

Dragorn paused, gently pursing his lip, waited for Katarina's face to face with thoughts, and quietly asked:

“You know what I mean?”

"I'm damned," said Katarina in an empty voice, lowering her hands. “I must have lost my soul, since I do not feel the proper fear of my fate, and even monsters do not want my blood.”

“Many hold the same opinion about those like you,” he grinned and added bitingly, nodding toward a chair behind her. “Sit down.”

“Those like me?” She asked in a low voice.

“The ones who’ve lost their original nature. Describe me,” said Dragorn suddenly, folding his arms over his chest. A bead of sweat slowly trickled down his temple, but he didn't notice it. “Describe what you see. What you feel. What you _scent_.”

Katarina shuddered, trying to look away, but someone else's monumental will made her look. She squinted at the scattering of bright candles, but could not tear herself away from her tormentor and his oily blue eyes. The more he strove to penetrate her consciousness, the more acutely she felt inside the excruciating irritation, akin to endless itching.

“You are poisonous,” Katarina said slowly, viewing Dragorn like a desecrated mural. “There is a haze around you, a poisoning mist, and it has saturated you through and through.”

“That's right,” Dragorn agreed. “I have been poisoned with numerous toxins in delicate proportions. They give me certain advantages. What else?”

“You have no fear.”

“Certain opiums also have this effect. More.”

Katarina frowned, struggling to resist the insinuating voice, but Dragorn's mind squeezed her own in a grip, and she almost groaned in the rushing pain and tension. The air scorched his skin, as if filled with invisible heat.

“You are… two-faced,” Katarina breathed through her teeth. Blood began to ooze from her nose. “Or not… As if cut in two, but… I don’t understand,” she moaned and grabbed her splitting head.

Dragorn narrowed his eyes contentedly, nodded slowly, and thoughtfully put his finger to his chin.

“Fascinating,” he sighed. “Can you feel it? My curse?”

“Your curse?”

“One sweet witch cursed my mother for a mere trifle, when she was pregnant.” Dragorn noticed a dumb question in Katarina's eyes and sighed: “She said that her children will be born, divided into black and white. My older brother was not that bad until I perverted his essence with my rotten nature.”

"So he was... good?" Katarina was amazed.

“Way better than me.”

Dragorn's eyes became oily, and for a moment Katarina saw his face, followed by Miron's, and then several more pictures from someone else's life that flashed in her mind.

Dragorn sighed heavily, approached the door, placing his bare palm on the wood, and buried his forehead in it, as if praying. His hand trembled strangely, and he himself seemed to be suffocating. Katarina felt how the sorcerer's emotions and thoughts flocked in his head in multi-colored rivulets from all sides, and then in one second changed the direction to the opposite.

“What did my brother do before he died?” asked the sorcerer, and his voice was muffled.

“He brewed a magic potion.”

“What potion?” He sighed impatiently.

“I don’t know. Nasty, green, from the bruxa’s venom and my blood...”

“And you drank it, didn't you?” Dragorn turned, and now his eyes were filled with a feverish gleam. “Of course, you did, otherwise you would... Hmm…”

He began to pace the room in small steps, perceptibly staggering, almost pushing a thin, sweet-smelling candle to the floor every time. A minute later, Dragorn stopped, looked around, and smiled madly.

“If this consoles you, dear Katarina, you have done a merciful act, ending his life and preventing suffering from the beginning. Sooner or later, he would have been torn apart by one of the vampires he had been chasing for so long.”

“He was your brother…”

“I have long ago lost that kinship with him, which is sung in ballads. Only blood and flesh bonds remained. And my soul is cursed from birth, Katarina.”

“And are you looking for ways to heal?”

Dragorn turned around with a wild smile on his gentle face.

“Do you wish to know if this is possible?” He chuckled and shook his head sharply. “The damned souls are desperately looking for salvation, hoping that innocent souls will be able to bestow it on them, but they only devour their light, transforming them into one of their own kind.”

“Repent, and then …”

“I have no one to repent to,” he snapped, his eyes flashing, and raised his index finger “Do you hear that?”

Katarina struggled to make out the ominous sounds that should have come from the darkness beyond the threshold, but the night breathed only the chirping of grasshoppers and pacification. Dragorn, meanwhile, grinned, absentmindedly wandering his eyes along the walls, squinting his eyes in bewilderment when he noticed the white guttered skeletons of candles.

“This city has a dark history,” he said lowly. “It is cursed to the core. Cursed are the bones on which it was erected. And this curse appeared before any of those living here was born. Born by the powerful will of a desperate woman distraught with unbearable grief. Having lost the most valuable thing we have - a family,” Dragorn smiled. “I lost it too. In a certain sense. You killed my brother... or me? You killed one of us... I can't understand…”

“You’re delusional,” Katarina muttered softly, watching Dragorn glance from one object to another, his voice jumping from a flat tenor to a hoarse whisper.

“I’m crazy, Katarina, but that doesn’t mean I’m wrong,” he smiled almost affectionately. “With the first rays of the sun, my curse will loosen its grip, and I may be surprised at your presence. Although what kind of captivity is this? You are free to go wherever you want. But you won't go... You need the truth. Don’t you, my dear?”

Katarina jerked as a low moan or otherworldly rumble rolled down the street behind the wall. Dragorn lifted his head thoughtfully after it and smiled sweeter than ever.

“You've survived until now. But what do you say about this?” Dragorn grinned like a carnivore, looking back at the door. “Perhaps you should take a look at everything with your own eyes.”

He approached Katarina with sharp, gusty steps, grabbed her arm again in a steel grip and pulled her with him. Once again, Katarina's consciousness sank into an oily haze, drowned and sank.

The deserted city met them with a chill, as if deathly cold drafts stretched through the streets, entwining it in spider webs. Katarina could hardly keep up with her captor, but his will was still stronger, ringing in the strained muscles and empty head, and she followed him as an obedient puppet. Dragorn led her straight into the black hole of the haze that had grown even denser in the last hour, taking new territories step by step. From afar echoes of fierce battle, squeals, angry growls and metal ringing were heard, as if armies of people and monsters had come together in a bloody battle.

“As far as I know, two madmen wished to examine the blocked quarter in person tonight,” Dragorn said nonchalantly. “Today I bought wax from them, and then my man saw them not far from the gatehouse... I cannot say that it was a reasonable act, but they are also undeniably unique personalities.”

As they passed through the darkening shroud, the air evaporated from Katarina's lungs for a second, and then Dragorn pulled her towards him, and she coughed sharply, gasping for air.

“Faster, faster, we're late…” he muttered, flashing darkened eyes. His mouth melted into an insane grin. “Well, let's see…”

He let go of her just as sharply and pushed her in front of him so hard that Katarina flew straight to the pale patch of the intersection, along which grinning shadows roamed.

“...tch out!” came to her vaguely familiar voice. “Dettlaff! On the right!”

“Regis?” she muttered, waking up, and immediately screamed, without realizing: “Regi-i-is!”

“Oh, so you two know each other?” Dragorn stepped closer to her shoulder, frowning quite usual. “Regis, Regis, a familiar name... Could it be…?”

The two shadows flew out of the darkness, pursued by creatures that looked like disembodied formless monsters. The spirits rose into the night air, and then fell like a bird down on one of the men, circling over his head like vultures, and he fought them off, not without the help of a companion, with a speed strange for the human eye. For a moment, Katarina saw Regis's worried face in one of the shadows, stepped towards him, and then...

“Holy Lord, I pray, have mercy on my sinful soul…” she whispered, and Dragorn's crumbling laugh was heard over her shoulder, nevertheless quite frightened.

From behind Regis, a figure of Dettlaff in black and scarlet robes with remarkable rivets emerged, but the face of their owner looked different: it was longer, grinning, milky white. Snow-white blades of claws flashed on his hands. Dettlaff smoothly deflected another blow from the darkness, keeping close to Regis. He stepped aside in response to the attackers, turned away for a moment, and when his face turned to Katarina again, he was... the same.

“Higher vampires?” Dragorn muttered behind Katarina, startled, and took a step back. “Both of them?”

Regis's face turned towards the sound. He finally spotted Katarina, and his black eyes flashed with fear. She would not have been able to see her own reflection in the black pupils, but for a moment, it seemed to her that she was seeing her own face - astonished and human. Katarina blinked, catching unbearable, bitter regret in Regis's gaze before he turned his eyes to her companion. The black and gray fog that appeared in his place, in a rapid movement, was behind the sorcerer. It flashed with blinding gold, the fog howled, receding, and the sorcerer turned around and retreated as fast as he could, surrounded by radiance, like an angel flying over water.

Katarina followed him with a shocked gaze, turned back and met nose to nose with a monstrous, deathly pale grimace, in which the familiar features were barely seen.

"Katarina," a deep voice came through Regis's lips.

Before he could say more, he deflected a new attack directed at Dettlaff, but there was no end to the shadows. They just reappeared, swirling in a continuous funnel of faces, mouths and claws, circling Regis and Dettlaff, staying back to back in the center of the monstrous hurricane. It was as beautiful as it was scary.

“Leave!” Snapped disfigured Regis.

Katarina turned helplessly after the fleeing sorcerer, but that one was gone. Meanwhile, a howling shadow that flew past her shoulder, aimed at Dettlaff (or that devilish creature that bore his disguise), but Regis stepped into his defense in time, leaving his own back uncovered. Katarina, guided by a previously unfamiliar instinct, rushed to both through the haze of ghosts, expecting resistance, and passed through her with such ease, as if it did not exist at all.

“Go back, now!” Regis roared, but she was already beside them, stubbornly standing in the center without any plan.

A grinning, translucent face appeared very close, bursting out of thin air, and Katarina could not think of anything better than to rip from her neck the silver cross on a thin chain polished to a shine and put it in front of her like a shield.

It got deafeningly quiet.

The shadow froze, followed by Regis and the frowning Dettlaff, and they all expected the continuation of the performance, which followed immediately.

“...God be merciful unto us, and bless us; and cause his face to shine upon us,

That thy way may be known upon earth, thy saving health among all nations.

Let the people praise thee, O God; let all the people praise thee.

Then shall the earth yield her increase; and God, even our own God, shall bless us.

God shall bless us; and all the ends of the earth shall fear him.”

The memorized prayer rang out in the sinister night like a sacred song. Katarina's voice was confused and trembled, her hand trembled too, but this tremor had a completely different nature underneath, which the audience probably did not even know. How much she kneeled on those cursed peas for having misread a Bible verse! How many midnight hours had she spent reading in order to "improve her meager memory, contaminated with bad thoughts."

“Regis…” murmured a low, frightening voice, vaguely reminiscent of Dettlaff's grim manner of speech. “What is this circ-…?”

Regis was equally disconcerted. He silently watched what was happening, but he had no time to do anything, because... the shadow receded. Curiously tilting its head to one side and staring at Katarina and the cross in her hand, it moved away. And then further. And a bit more.

Katarina swallowed, interrupting, and immediately resumed her reading with vigor. The cross in her hands gleamed faintly, or perhaps it was a game of the subconscious. Her voice resounded around the neighborhood no worse than that of a priest who read sermons in church, not forgetting to mention that a true faith cannot be available for a woman. The shadows, however, receded, and a bit of vanity pricked from within, and immediately, as if in punishment, something on the left swooped down on Katarina. Ethereal, almost intangible, it nevertheless slammed into her, pushing her away.

The world, which slowed down for many minutes, spun the wheel abruptly, and events began to spin momentarily. Shadows rushed at those who disturbed their peace, more furious than ever. Katarina only managed at the last moment to cling to her fingers on the hand outstretched to her. The cold, lumpy skin flinched at the touch of the warm human, and then Regis jerked Katarina towards himself, and they moved forward with a terrifying speed that almost choked her. The spirits behind them seemed to laugh, but for some reason, they were in no hurry to pursue, preferring one straggler to the two fugitives.

Regis unceremoniously dragged Katarina away and left her on the other side of the haze, and then disappeared again into the enchanted twilight. He returned much later, now with Dettlaff, whose cloak had been torn in many places, and burgundy blood oozed from his flesh, indistinguishable from human. Dettlaff was breathing heavily, leaning on Regis's arm. Katarina, on the other hand, tried not to look at their disfigured faces, although curiosity was eating her from inside, and she continually glanced furtively.

“I must admit, this was the most unexpected development of events that I could have imagined,” Regis said smoothly, with a bit of fatigue, after a while, when the three of them walked through the city streets, and Dettlaff no longer needed assistance.

Regis held Katarina securely just above the elbow, like a bird on a leash, and his voice sounded normal and human, but she was still wary of turning her head.

“I hope the 'unexpected development' will explain what happened in person and in detail,” Dettlaff said hoarsely. Ordinary, gloomy, stingy.

“Please, Dettlaff, do not put pressure on the girl. She got lost on the streets in only one shirt. The reason for all this must have been very significant.” If it were not for the measured, soothing tone, Katarina would have thought Regis was being ironic.

They made it to the shop neither slowly nor quickly, and only then did Regis unclench his fingers on Katarina's forearm. She collapsed into a familiar, rocking chair, pressed trembling fingers with a cross to her lips, and then saw completely ordinary human faces of men, her own bare knees, turned into a mess, froze for a second and eerily, utterly burst into tears for the first time in several weeks.

The story took a fair amount of time. Sometimes Katarina wondered whether she should keep silent about another outlandish detail, sometimes - if she really heard and saw what she remembered. Regis listened silently and attentively, Dettlaff occasionally grunted, believing that Katarina had irrevocably gone mad from night walks, and she herself constantly asked herself how she even came up with the idea of protecting some monsters from others. What got into her?

Dettlaff once again looked at her cross as if he wanted to devour it with her.

“What is it?” in the end, he could not resist, making an impatient movement with his hand. “An artifact? An amulet?”

“Have mercy,” Katarina muttered. “This is a symbol of Him. A tool capable of great power in the right hands.”

“And the right hands, of course, are yours.”

“Only a deeply immoral being, full of black pride, can speak so clearly about the gift that was sent down…”

She didn’t sneer, saying this and dragging out her words melodiously. Well, maybe a little.

“I can’t take it anymore,” Dettlaff interrupted her, catching the expression in her eyes and rising with the doom of a condemned man in his eyes.

He walked past Katarina to the table, stretched out his hand for a bucket of frozen wax, driven by the desire to occupy his hands with something to calm his irritation, and stared blankly at the empty tabletop.

“Where is it?” Dettlaff asked into the void.

“What’s it?” Regis wondered.

Dettlaff glanced slowly at Katarina, unmistakably hearing the beat of someone else's heart. She raised her fiercely flashing eyes in response to his nothing expressive look, and then suddenly wilted.

“I spent everything on a pie,” she said with the same doom with which Dettlaff had previously looked at her.

Regis raised his eyebrows in complete silence.

“A pie,” concluded Dettlaff after a few seconds, comprehending what was said and stepping back a bit.

Katarina nodded her head, forcibly.

“My friends,” Regis finally sighed, gently pushing his pensive friend aside and once again handing Katarina her own handkerchief. Once she dropped it with shaking hands, and he tactfully gave her a new one, accidentally brushing a thin tear off her cheek with his fingers. “We should stop this interrogation and wait until morning to talk.”

“Time is pressing,” Dettlaff snapped, turning away from both of them.

“Time endured for several weeks, and judging by the story of Katarina, decades. It will wait a little more.”

Despite the softness of tone, the discussion was finished. Dettlaff silently watched Regis rummaging through his own bags, jingling bottles and jars, sometimes (for the umpteenth time) casually glancing at Katarina's broken knees, then pursed his lips and quickly fogged out the window.

Literally.

Katarina followed this shocking and completely surreal gesture with amazed eyes, then remembered the faces of both men at the moment when Dragorn led her beyond the line, and shuddered again.

Regis, without moving in response to what had happened and without raising his head, continued to phlegmatically sort through the contents of the bag, as if it was endless due to some spell. Finally, he looked at Katarina with a penetrating calm look, never waiting for new words, and got up from his chair.

“Who are you?” Katarina asked in a hoarse voice, holding out her open right hand in response to his movement.

“A higher vampire,” Regis said calmly, taking one step away from her. He glanced thoughtfully at the cross clutched in her left hand, which lay limp on the tabletop.

“Higher?” Katarina asked.

“This means that I am the most intelligent member of my race.”

“Your... race? You staged the massacre in Beauclair?”

Regis narrowed his eyes in response to the sudden outburst and waited for the familiar questioning expression to return to Katarina's face.

“No. And I wouldn’t want you to think so.” He gently pulled her hand aside and, not meeting new objections, put his chair closer. “Not every vampire drinks human blood, and not everyone kills people.”

“You're lying,” Katarina said timidly.

“Really?” Regis chuckled bitterly. “When was the last time I lied to you?”

“How do I know if you didn't tell the truth?”

“I swear to you that I haven’t deceived you even once,” Regis said seriously, without looking away. “Vampires, like people, have different characters, and to denigrate any of them only on the basis of race…”

“You have claws. Fangs. And… that face,” Katarina shivered. “It's not just a matter of race.”

“Though I have never used them for evil in relation to you and the people we met. Or are you just blaming me for who I am?”

“No,” she shook her head, looking away. Regis's deep, attentive eyes were gone, but his scent was not. At the same time, Katarina seemed to hear the measured beat of his bloodthirsty heart. “I blame myself. For stupidity. For naivety. For haste decisions.”

“This is the time of youth,” Regis grinned mildly. “Its beauty. Come on, Katarina.” Someone else's sensitive fingers gently touched her, and she did not find the strength to object and move away. “We need to focus on something else. Your abrasions need to be lubricated so that infection does not start.”

He looked at her strangely and intently, as if he doubted what he had said, and then silently held out a jar of unbearably odorous ointment. Katarina tried to grab it with shaking fingers, but it slipped out of her grasp over and over like a mirage.

“I can help,” Regis said smoothly.

An unspoken question lurked in his words, and Katarina froze like a swan in the tall reeds that heard the shot of a hunting rifle. Finally, she nodded as slowly as if she didn't want her movement to be noticed at all. After a moment, long fingers, weightless and gentle, ran over the damaged skin. Regis was silent in concentration, and there was no hint of offensive lust in his actions or eyes. Katarina bit her lip, silently dropping her eyelids and not wanting to admit to herself that this was what irritated her the most. Regis's fingers went a little lower and a little higher than necessary, each time stubbornly returning to their original area, and agonizing shivers ran along her bare legs along with a chill.

“That's it,” Regis said quietly and wearily, and the warm touch disappeared, and Katarina realized that she was closing her eyes so hard that her facial muscles ached. “Katarina, I assure you, you must not be afraid of me…”

“Thank you,” she murmured, and rushed up the stairs, driven by anything but fear.

Emotions, so barely contained lately, fell on her like the tenth wave, leading to senseless confusion, similar to a storm stretching across the entire horizon of consciousness. Katarina sank cautiously onto the bed, clenching her fists, ordering herself to calm down, but the storm grew steadily. The fragile boat of reason rocked from side to side. She was then covered with a gigantic size of horror from the realization that there were evil spirits next to her in the house, then shame because this evil caused certain feelings. The husband's face, of course, popped up in her thoughts with an enviable frequency, but it was somehow faded, like the memory of a long-forgotten minor offense, say, a cake eaten before dinner.

“What the hell!” Katarina muttered a blasphemous curse, but it didn't help much.

She glanced back at the crumpled bed, frantically pulled on her pants and closed the window tightly, putting a couple of chairs and a chamber pot in front of it just in case, which it would be impossible not to stumble upon if she wanted to wander in her sleep again. A drowsiness overcame, vaguely similar to the one that overtook her early at night after Dettlaff's coming, and when Katarina dived under the covers, even her own will could not cope with her, persistently begging not to sleep. Sleep came with soft, inaudible steps, and with it appeared visions that Regis, who was restlessly walking on the first floor, could not even imagine.


	6. Vade retro, Satana

"The Lord gave me faith and protection in the purity of my soul... Regis..." Dettlaff was reaching for the wax, but once again stumbled upon an empty spot where the top used to be, and squeezed his fingers. “I have not heard such nonsense from people even in the tenth century. And I’ve never met such stubbornness…” He impatiently knocked his knuckles on the table, choosing his words.

“Of course you haven't,” Regis agreed calmly. “You are not reflected in the mirrors.”

“Ah, sweet irony.”

Regis sighed.

“You constantly ignore the fact that Katarina has nothing to do with our world. The shadows didn't touch her - and that's the only starting point we have. We don't know the reason. Perhaps she has magical abilities. Or maybe the religion that is preached in her world does have power.”

“The shadows didn't touch you either, until you started helping me. Do you preach religion too?” Dettlaff said sarcastically.

“At first, I was too far from the epicenter of the battle to be sure of that,” Regis winced.

“Don't tell me that you really believe in this cross and prayer nonsense! The lamentations of the village fools are more useful!”

“You have always been extremely skeptical about credible matters, while…”

“We should visit this magician,” Dettlaff interrupted his friend, waving away his lecturing tone.

A thought, as obvious as it was unpleasant, hung in the air.

“Hmm,” only said Regis, in whom the desire to see the sorcerers after Vilgefortz died out with him.

"Hmm?"

“May I ask, my friend,” Regis began smoothly after a short silence. “Is your impatience and a considerable desire to get to the bottom of the truth connected with the incident that you mentioned once in one of our evening talks?”

Dettlaff glanced sideways, hunching gloomily, like a roadside boulder covered with a shroud.

“I don’t insist,” Regis bowed his head.

“I'm not hiding anything from you, Regis,” Dettlaff sighed. “I just don’t recognize you sometimes, and that’s why I find it difficult to talk to you. I still remember the times when you drank human blood like juice, and your longest sentence consisted of ten words.”

Regis chuckled mildly.

“I am able to change as long as I remain immortal. Nevertheless, the meeting with Vilgefortz has melted some of my illusions about my own invulnerability.”

“It melted not only your illusions.”

“Thank you for the priceless sarcasm, my friend. Exactly. You collected me bit by bit. And that is why it is strange for me to see in you such a greedy zeal, since it concerns mages.”

“I don’t want to run away again like a sheep that has strayed from the flock,” Dettlaff snapped, getting up. He began to pace restlessly in the semi-darkness of the room, without changing, however, the cold-blooded expression on his face. “At that time I made the mistake of not risking continuing the pursuit, and now I want to push it through to the end.

“You were wounded and exhausted. I was not present at this, but, based on your own words, flight was the only right decision for you.”

“The sorcerers must be finished at once, Regis,” Dettlaff remarked coldly and turned to the stairs. “Is there something you want to tell us, Katarina?”

Her silent presence, of course, did not come as a surprise to either vampire, even though she naively tried to hide behind the rickety stair rail. However, she, like any person, was betrayed by the smell. Regis sighed, brushing aside the unpleasant thought, and looked at the girl. She, biting her lip, stared at Dettlaff as stubbornly as if there was no one else in the room. The silence lasted; Dettlaff did not take his eyes away, responding with obvious sneer. Katarina did not give up either.

“Am I again recognized as a pariah in your eyes, duchess?” he asked in a low and velvety voice, narrowing his eyes.

“Not at all, Dettlaff,” Katarina said grimly. A restless feverish gleam settled in her eyes, although she herself did not notice it. She crossed her arms on her chest, looking sullenly. “As a vampire, you are cursed and marked with satanic power. This is not your fault.”

“Even if my desire was voluntary?” He chuckled.

“The temptations of the flesh are great, and not everyone is able to cope with them. But it is not for us to judge.”

“Don't you think, Katarina,” Dettlaff sighed, “that we have already discussed this topic? Your beliefs have nothing to do with what is happening here. Neither, as you put it, does the Lord or Satan.”

“Not at all!” Katarina was genuinely surprised. “On the contrary, now my belief in this is stronger than ever. This land is inhabited by demons who came from outside from the opened hellish gates, and people have to fight with them all their lives. What difference does it make what you call it? Ghouls, vampires, hell gates, Conjugation of the Spheres - all are one.”

Dettlaff looked at Regis mockingly, then turned and walked heavily towards the shelves. He gently lifted the milky-yellow figure of a draconid with bulging beads of eyes and held it out to Katarina in his open palm. She hesitated and carefully took the craft, trying not to touch Dettlaff's skin with her fingers. Regis watched their slow gestures thoughtfully, arms folded across his chest.

“It's a wyvern,” Dettlaff said. “And there is no more evil in it than in a peasant who rips open a pig's belly before a long winter. The only difference is that the wyvern hunts for meat, and the peasant deliberately grows it, not forgetting about the kind word. And then he kills,” Dettlaff paused. “But the wyvern is not intelligent. Hunger drives it. As well as it does to the peasant, of course. But it does not end with only killed pigs. I think, as a woman, you know how unreasonably cruel the human race is.”

Katarina's fingers curled gently around the wyvern's body, and she lowered her hand. The wax warmed up from her hands, and a tart odor floated through the room.

“You're right, Dettlaff,” she said suddenly. “Therefore, more will be demanded from the one who has more power. And you - have more power than any of the peasants. And you know about this, because you stayed in this city without passing by, although you accuse people of cruelty and weakness.”

“Now you sing me praises?”

“No. I wonder what you have done if you want to atone for your sins by helping those you despise.”

Dettlaff raised his chin briefly, Regis tensed and smoothly flowed from one position to another, stepping a little closer to the interlocutors. Katarina was shorter and so she had to climb a few steps to be level with Dettlaff, but she kept her chin high and level.

“I want to talk to Dragorn,” she said suddenly in a prolonged silence, glumly turning away from Dettlaff, and now staring into the void between him and Regis.

“It’s completely out of the question.” Regis darkened at once.

“He will be talking to me,” Katarina said stubbornly, completely uncharacteristic of her earlier, impetuous manner, her eyes flashing. She looked at Regis only once and immediately hid her gaze in her hand with the statuette. “He knows something about the curse and about me. I'll make a deal with him.”

“Deals with sorcerers are more dangerous than deals with the devil, Katarina,” Regis said softly, trying to find her gaze, but he failed and darkened even more.

“The girl wants to understand what’s happening to her,” Dettlaff said mockingly, slowly unclenching his hand in a black glove without fingers, which was clasped behind his back. The claws that appeared obediently drew inward. “That's her right.”

They glanced at each other, and Regis shook his head unkindly.

“We can talk to him personally.”

“He recognized our essence, Regis. He got scared. And he ran. Fear can make him talkative. Or maybe plunge into the final madness. Then no amount of torture, admonition, screaming will give any result.”

“Dettlaff is right,” Katarina nodded, bringing Dettlaff into a state close to catatonia with this phrase. “Fear will only confuse his thoughts. If I come alone, he will be much more compliant.”

“I don’t like this idea,” Regis snapped, turning away as if at the same time ending the discussion.

Katarina pursed her lips and quickly ran down the stairs past Dettlaff, barely hitting him with her shoulder and forcing the vampire to stagger. Dettlaff narrowed his eyes thoughtfully as he watched her, while Katarina put a hand on Regis's forearm, forcing him to turn around with a surprised expression.

“You cannot forbid me,” she said shortly, raising her head regally, for Regis was also much taller than her. “This is my desire. And I have the right to fulfill it, if it directly affects my life.”

Regis's face looked common and familiar but a moment later a frightening image flashed through Katarina's thoughts, and she averted her eyes against her will. Regis sighed sadly without hiding.

“We will watch you,” Dettlaff said from behind Katarina, quite amused by what was happening, and he would not hesitate to shove the impudent girl into the dragon's mouth.

“Watch me?”

“The ravens.”

“Oh, so it means…”

“An unusually useful bird,” Regis said wearily. “Higher vampires sometimes use their services. But this does not mean that this idea has become in any way wiser.”

At the mention of vampires and Regis's direct relationship to them, a wave of emotions, guesses and suspicion was displayed on Katarina's face, starting with the assumption that Regis and his faithful birds were personally to blame for everything that happened to her, and ending with a completely incomprehensible expression close to that what Regis would call embarrassment.

“Wiser?” Dettlaff chuckled. “I would say which of your last ideas, Regis, was unwise, but you know it yourself.”

They crossed their eyes again, and again - to no avail.

“I'm leaving now,” Katarina informed them cheerfully, checking to see if all the buttons on her shirt were done.

“Now?” Regis was taken aback.

“Just like that?” Dettlaff chuckled.

“Dragorn said his curse weakened during the day. Perhaps now he will come to his senses.”

Katarina moved quite a distance away from Regis, who watched the door slam behind the girl with a discouraged gaze.

“The ravens?” He raised an eyebrow, turning around.

“She should know that you're following her,” Dettlaff chuckled.

Regis shook his head, and after a moment the outlines of his body floated imperceptibly, completely transforming into an impenetrable black mist without any admixture of any other color, which was often present in other of his relatives. A red-black mist followed him, seeping through the window slits.

Katarina walked away from the house, loudly beating the rhythm of her own heart with the heels of her boots on the pavement. She looked like a woman, determined to go to the goal without a bit of doubt, but her scent and the pounding blood in her temples betrayed excitement to those who could smell. Thrilled Katarina cast glances at the ravens on the eaves somewhat irritatedly, each of which now seemed to her as a bloodhound, completely oblivious to the thin mist spreading in the shadows.

Another fork, which looked indistinguishable from the previous four, pushed Katarina straight onto Neunreuth Square, along which, like balls on the floor, were scattered motley shops. Katarina sighed, completely lost in the rushing hubbub, and barely had time to jump aside when from the second floor of the neighboring house onto the pavement generously poured slop from an overturned bucket. The appearance of Regis, who came out from behind her a second later, was another link in a chain of unpleasant surprises.

“I'm lost,” Katarina confessed. “I would have found my way at night, but during the day everything looks different.”

“Interesting perception,” Regis bowed his head. “However, I know the exact address of the sorcerer and I will be happy to show it in person.”

Regis stood close, so close that it would have been possible not to look at him only by turning away. Katarina gazed thoughtfully somewhere in the area of someone else's shoulder, pulled into the wool of a caftan and involuntarily clasped her fingers in the lower abdomen.

They started talking at the same time. Regis was suave and soft, Katarina - chaotic and loud.

“You are still afraid of me…”

“I need to go to the market…”

They both stopped short, and Regis was the first to tactfully bow his head, offering to end her line.

“We need to go to the market,” Katarina repeated gloomily, lowering her gaze and still cherishing the hope of getting rid of the literally omnipresent guide.

The strap of the bag caught her eye, which Regis had a habit of constantly correcting, gently fingering along the buckle with his long fingers. Another tormenting picture from night visions.

“What for?”

“Do you have money?” Katarina sighed, expecting Regis to say no and be escorted home to take some. “I want to repay the debt to the baker.”

Regis raised his eyebrows, but then he slowly nodded, and Katarina was even sadder.

The duchess was glad to find herself in a familiar market crowd, where any frank conversation became impossible and inconvenient. Even more, she would have been glad to be able to leave the high vampire's line of sight, but Regis's presence now seemed inevitable, like lightning in a stormy sky.

Katarina strode briskly to the counter at the very beginning of the market, and Regis followed her movement with a slight grin. Familiar delicacies appeared before her eyes, beckoning with baked sides and shiny glaze.

“Do you happen to know…” Katarina, in bewilderment, examined from head to toe an old man.

“Yes, daughter?” He asked kindly, but without a twinkle, looking back at her.

“I must be looking for your daughter.” Katarina turned, but Regis had no intention of leaving. He stood there and listened intently to the conversation, as if it was the most important in his life. “She sold me food, but did not take the full payment. I came to repay the debt.”

The old man raised his eyebrows.

“You are wrong, dear. My Anka left the city a long time ago. Fell in love with a lousy elf and ran away with him. Five years ago, it was.”

“But I saw her,” Katarina frowned. “Pretty, blue-eyed, in a colorful scarf. Perhaps it was your wife?”

The baker laughed so loudly that several ravens flew up from the roof with a croak.

“Come on, then? My wife? Even in her youth, when I fell in love with her, she was as terrible as a wyvern,” the old man croaked. “Well, okay, love. You must have been wrong. I sit here, like a damned one, in this very place, every day. And I wouldn't give you anything on credit. You, I see, are a decent girl, but my wife will devour me with giblets if I give something without payment. So, don't blame me, you were mistaken.”

“I was not mistaken,” Katarina grimaced and stubbornly held out her hand with the coins. “Take it. Please.”

“I don't need someone else's.”

“I insist.”

The old man, hesitating, nevertheless took the money, awkwardly slipping it into his bosom and briskly glancing behind his back, at the bench full of dark, pot-bellied bottles, over which the aroma of drunken honey wafted. Regis followed this gesture with cheerful eyes and immediately frowned to find Katarina at a considerable distance.

“I don’t understand,” she said, not noticing the temporary absence of her companion. “I definitely saw her. And this shop.”

“The Neunreuth market is huge. You could be wrong.”

“I could not. It was definitely here.”

Katarina and Regis, without saying a word, walked around the merchant's counter in an even arc, which was dashingly tossing griddle cakes into the air right from the frying pan, turning them on the fly. The crowd accompanied the virtuoso gestures with contented sighs, and the children hoped that the cake would surely turn and fall into a puddle.

“Come here! Taste it! Enough for everyone!”

The merchant winked at Regis and grabbed a pair of palms with shiny coins, quickly giving the hot cakes into outstretched hands and wrapping them in a gray rag that instantly swelled with oil. Katarina watched the next portion without any interest, when a whole crowd of children climbed between her and Regis, pushing the girl closer to the merchant.

“Katarina!” Regis was about to approach her when the merchant made another gesture with his hand, but he was pushed sideways, and a new cake flew in a different direction.

Katarina turned around in surprise, involuntarily stretched out her slender hand and at the last moment caught the flying traveler between her two palms. She immediately grimaced, smeared with oil, and irritatedly put the cake on the counter at the frightened merchant. He began to lament something, but Katarina, busy thinking, was already walking on, angrily wiping her hands. Neither did she notice Regis's careful gaze, which was looking at her slightly reddened fingers.

Regis pointed the direction, and after a couple of streets, Katarina recognized familiar places with a shiver. The world looked different in daylight, so she had to wander for a while, without changing the speed and decisiveness of her step. She left Regis behind, and he surprisingly did not argue, and in general - looked at her weirdly. When Katarina discovered the door and the sign of the blacksmith's shop, in the annex of which the sorcerer had stopped, her small fist rumbled confidently against the oak surface.

“Oh, m’lady!” Exclaimed the blacksmith, now dressed in an apron and holding a hammer in his hairy hand. He walked around the corner, where the smithy was apparently located, and broke into a kind smile, and a dapper boy looked out over his shoulder. “Did you come for the money? But I brought it to your father in the morning, when you rested.”

Katarina was taken aback for a second, and when she remembered who the blacksmith calls her father, she almost rushed at the good-natured man with her fists.

“Oh!” The blacksmith turned to the boy and patted him on the shoulder. “This is mister Mlishek, the son of the treasurer. And this is Mrs. Katarina, daughter, it appears, of the wax maker.”

The boy nodded with mild interest, thanked the blacksmith for the lemonade, handed him a wooden mug, and rushed down the street.

“I'm sorry, m’lady, there’s no more lemonade” the blacksmith awkwardly turned the mug in his hands. “I usually give it during the day when it's hot. This ad is good, and people are kinder. But everything has already been taken. Otherwise, I would offer you some, yes, I definitely would…”

He frowned a little sadly at Katarina, but she just waved it off.

“Excuse me, I... I don't need lemonade, master. I'm looking for Master Dragorn.” She bowed in the Polish manner, judging that the courtesy of the guest to the host must be done. “I have an appointment with him.”

“So he usually rests at lunch... He says that the sun has a bad effect on his skin,” the blacksmith grunted. “I believe him. Master Dragorn's skin must be smoother than that of a baby. Do you want me to tell you that you came by?”

“No, I need to see him now,” Katharina stubbornly said, and before the blacksmith stopped her, she started knocking on the door again. He hesitated, not knowing how to scare away the stubborn young lady - not to rush at her with fists - as the door swung open in irritation, and a sorcerer appeared on the threshold.

“Katarina,” he said hoarsely, changing somewhat in his face, which in the daylight looked unhealthy and with dullness in the eyes. The sorcerer looked like a chronic patient in a period of exacerbation, and his clothes were all wrinkled, as if he had barely got out of bed. The madness was gone from his eyes, and what had frightened before now aroused only timid pity.

“I want to talk,” said Katarina resolutely and loudly, frightening the birds on the cornice.

“You want answers,” Dragorn translated, wincing at the harsh sounds, and grinning weakly. “You are not even afraid to come, huh?”

He squinted blindly at the sun, staring out the street behind Katarina.

“No one with me,” she blurted out quickly.

“If you really believe in it, then you are a complete fool.”

Dragorn chuckled in response to her irritation, but in the end he shook his head listlessly - saying to come in.

Katarina, not believing that she was doing it voluntarily, again stepped into the familiar room, which had imperceptibly changed with dawn. The candles did not disappear anywhere, and, moreover, they were lit, and here and there she could see swollen cinders arranged in saucers and on clay stands. Empty cups of various sizes appeared on the table, a stain of tea flowed out of one of them and was almost dry under the sun penetrating the flowered curtains and dusty window glass. Several half-empty flasks, whose smell deafened for a moment, rolled across the dresser, table and nightstands, and a suspension of numerous powders of powder dispersed in the air, flickering in a halo of lights.

Dragorn, swaying, reached the nearest chair with a broken armrest, collapsed heavily into it and stretched out his bare feet in front of him. Katarina stopped on the threshold, but the sorcerer stared at the open door so intensely that she went inside, shutting it, and nestled awkwardly at the chest of drawers.

“I love this house,” said Dragorn hoarsely, out of place. “Always stayed here. Away from the main streets there are fewer guests.”

“You invited me as recently as last night,” Katarina said ringingly, raising her head.

“If I knew that two higher vampires were your companions, I would run without looking back,” he snapped. “I don't need _such_ problems.”

“Are they really that scary?” Katarina frowned.

“Not at all,” Dragorn clasped his fingers under his chin and glanced at the girl with faint amusement. “Not so scary. But there is one minor detail. They cannot be killed.”

“How’s that?”

“They are immortal, Katarina,” the sorcerer said smoothly. “Neither a man, nor a witcher, nor a sorcerer - no one can really kill a higher vampire. Of course, with the proper skill, you can imprison him in some kind of coffin, but it would be better for you to die before he gets out of it.”

“No creature can be immortal. Only a holy soul is accessible to this fate. This is against all laws!”

“That’s why I’d rather run away than fight them. They live contrary to all laws,” the sorcerer sighed. “However, now your fearlessness is becoming clear. An escort like this should give you strength.”

“I already said that I came alone. We decided that…”

“We?” he burst out laughing and suddenly muttered: “Blessed be the soul that in the naivety of judgments believes in miracles... So why have you come?”

“You talked about the curse,” Katarina frowned resentfully. “And about me. I want to know about this and why your brother needed me and…” she thought.

“In other words, everything, Your Majesty,” Dragorn chuckled.

“How did you find out?!”

“Did I guess right?” he cheered and waved his hand lazily. “Blue blood does not understand the common folk. Even when you ask, you order. Especially now... What will I get in return for my humility and obedience?”

Katarina winced at the snide in his voice, but did not lower her head.

“I give you my word that none of my companions will touch you and will not pursue you.”

“That’s arrogant. You cannot give such a word. No matter how you play with men - you can never do it with higher vampires.”

Katarina pursed her lips. Dragorn's familiar treatment cut her ears, violating all the known norms of etiquette, even though he - Katarina had no doubt - was himself of noble birth, and therefore he was perfectly aware of it. Katarina involuntarily tried to look for the raven in the window with her eyes, but did not find it, and this gave her strange relief. She did not want at all that this shameful conversation with the sorcerer, which did not honor and respect her, was heard by someone else.

“What if I say I want your blood?” Dragorn drawled thoughtfully.

“Blood?..” Katarina perked up.

“Mhm.”

“Give the sorcerer my blood, which contains all my life force and destiny?!”

“I give you my word that I will not use it against you.”

“You cannot give me such a word,” Katarina grinned angrily, and a strange feeling came to her throat, which happens when you look at a bear, in fact, it turns out to be a shrew. “Whatever person you are, you are still a cursed sorcerer.”

“In that case, you can go on your merry little way.”

“What if I ask my companions for help?” She asked defiantly.

“If you please,” Dragorn nodded graciously. “I have something to give them before I die. For example, I will have time to curse you myself. That will be fun for you,” he grinned badly, arching his pale pink lips. “Nonsense, Katarina. You don't know what hell my mind is in, and therefore neither death nor bodily suffering is to scare me anymore. One day you will understand this.”

Katarina gritted her teeth. All she wanted was to put the scoundrel's curly head well against the wall for ridicule and disobedience, and now also for gloomy omens of her own fate. Dragorn, meanwhile, laughed, his eyes glittering madly.

“You are absolutely adorable in anger, lady,” he leaned forward a little and spoke low and hoarsely, skillfully playing to the audience in the face of Katarina and a sleepy beetle on the wall. “I'll take everything I want from you, and I don't need a deal for that... However, I would have looked at the expression on your face if you knew the truth.” He tilted his head. “But, speaking frankly, I won't be enough for two stories. What do you choose? The truth about this city or the truth about yourself?”

“And you will tell me so simply?”

“I'll ask you for something in return. Afterwards. Not your blood, don't worry.”

“Won’t work.”

“I said already. You can leave. Or agree. Take your pick.”

Katarina's eyes flashed as she glanced down at the sunlit windowsill.

“I'm a guest in this world,” Katarina said slowly, resisting her own desires. “Therefore, the troubles of this glorious city are more important. I choose the city.”

Dragorn raised his eyebrows and only waved his hand.

“Compassion and courage. Damned Toussaint virtues. How boring. But since the lady wishes…”

“I wish,” Katarina nodded regally, without even thinking, and thus causing another burst of laughter from the interlocutor.

“Well, the city,” Dragorn wearily shifted in his chair, holding a handkerchief soaked with a suspicious balm to his nose, and sharply inhaled its vapor. “The city... Do you know anything about the Conjugation of the Spheres, dear Katarina?”

“My companion mentioned this in sufficient details.”

“But he hardly mentioned that the higher vampires, to which he himself belongs, also came to this world as guests,” he nodded in response to the confusion in Katarina's eyes. “Just like you. In that brief historical era, which was hardly a few decades, vampires were sure that they would be able to bargain some place from this world for themselves. Powerful and immortal... their desires of conquest were inevitable. In addition, for unknown reasons, they favor the warm climate, and therefore chose several shelters for themselves in these hot regions. Neunreuth became one of those. It is easy to guess that they did not come here in peace. Legends say that the vampires offered the local ruler a deal, which he refused, for which he paid along with the whole city.”

“Did the vampires destroy it?” Katarina sighed.

“Not quite. They were going to live in it. But their aggressive actions led to the wrath of the druid’s circle that once dwelt in these parts. As far as I know, the circle was mostly destroyed, but the most powerful curse, as usual, is the posthumous one. One of the Druides, who lost her entire family - or rather, even an entire community - promised the invaders terrible torment. How was it?” Dragorn scratched the tip of his nose and mournfully quoted “There will be no rest, neither alive nor dead, - to all those who have drunk human blood. And may the wrath of the dead and the restless descend upon them, and bring them to the grave... And so on, so on. I don't remember literally. All curses are inescapably dramatic and very boring. But, as you can see, this does not prevent them from coming true.”

“So the curse worked?”

“Exactly. Killing immortals is not an easy task, but the more terrible is the torment if you cannot end it. The vampires were forced to leave, and on the bones of their dead people rebuilt new blocks and healed again as if nothing had happened. A short age gives a short memory.”

“Is it possible to build a city where evil once happened? Doesn't a dark spirit keep people from sleeping at night?”

“Even the heart-rending screams of women caught in dark alleys do not prevent people from sleeping. And here, some lousy curse” the sorcerer grinned. “It fell asleep, as it always happens to them. And it can wake up in ten years, or in a thousand. A huge time for an ordinary human being.”

“Still, there is little reasonable in this story. Too much blood has been spilled in these lands.”

“The human mind is limited by the amount of gold it has,” Dragorn shrugged. “And building a new city instead of restoring the old one is a huge waste. However, you're right. Any curse is a burr. As much as you yearn to get rid of it, the only thing that can help you is the cleansing flame.”

“You are amazingly poetic.”

“And you are arrogant and dull.”

Katarina sighed. Now the sorcerer looked like a child, to whom celery in a candy wrapper had been slipped under his nose.

“So the vampires came to town again, and the curse awoke? But my companions came here later than what you are talking about appeared.”

“The curses are literal enough, Katarina. Then no one knew about vampires yet, and, moreover, no one gave them names. The Druidess mentioned "those who drank human blood", and a creature of any race can do this. To her credit, she chose the correct wording. To choose a punishment not for nature, but for a committed crime.”

Dragorn's eyes became completely watery from the constant touch of a handkerchief to his nose. He took a deep breath and continued.

“One pebble is enough to bring down an avalanche, and this pebble does not have to belong to any particular breed. Natural entropy should not be overlooked either. The curse is very old and for so long it could partially dissipate across the continent. The events in Beauclair most likely provoked it, even if it was far away. After all, there was a real ball of bloodsuckers. As for your companions…” Dragorn smiled predatorily, wiping a scarlet drop from under his nose. “I noticed that on the ever-memorable night one of them, that of black hair, fought fiercely against the damned souls, but his friend, a gallant aristocrat, only defended him.”

“What are you driving at, Dragorn?”

“Only at the fact that one of them drinks human blood. I am sure, of course, that both have tried it, but, apparently, it is not the fact itself that is important, but the process or its implementation in any time frame... If I were you, I would be extremely careful with those of them who neglect this... diet.”

“You're disgusting.”

“I've heard worse. But the expression on your face is a worthy reward for such a disgusting master like me.”

“We're not done.” Katarina pursed her lips as she watched Dragorn shut his eyes, softening in his chair. “Why did you drag me there? Why was I forced to watch?”

“I didn't force. I wanted to see how you’d react.”

“Did you see?” Katarina grinned vengefully.

“No, I ran away,” Dragorn opened his eyes sharply and grinned. “Do you want to reproach me with my own cowardice? Not worth it. I have become accustomed to each of my vices and cherish them with tenderness.”

“You are a rascal and a scoundrel, sir.”

“Of course. I'm a sorcerer,” he nodded. “But, as I see it, you tend to gather around you a company of very remarkable creatures, who by no means are saints.”

“Now what?” Katarina clasped her fingers together. “What would you like as a gift for your frankness?”

“Mmm… You would make a worthless sorceress,” Dragorn winced. “Who voluntarily reminds of their own debts?”

“I don’t want to owe someone like you.”

“As you wish. My request will be insultingly simple and will not demand anything from you. My precious ancestor named Covinarius... Oh, I see, Miron has already told you about this. So, he hid some of his notes in an unknown place. I found out that before his death, grandpa had a friendship with an interesting creature that could not be human, because he knew too much and lived for too long. And his name was just…” Dragorn made a significant pause and pursed his lips deliciously.

“… Regis,” Katarina whispered softly.

“Right. Be so kind as to ask your noble knight if he received those records and would like to share them with a legitimate heir?”

“How long ago did Covinarius die?” Katarina asked quietly, not hearing someone else's request.

Dragorn narrowed his eyes, swinging the edge of his palm back and forth in the air.

“Let’s say, my great-grandfather was his nephew.”

He chuckled, shaking his head in response to the amazement on Katarina's face, but she stubbornly remained silent, and Dragorn slowly dropped his eyelids at the end. His face seemed dry and a little mournful, and now he breathed intermittently and rarely.

“There is no hidden place, is there?” Katarina asked quietly after minutes. “And no records? You test me again…”

Dragorn was silent, without raising his eyelids. Katarina, stunned by the discovery, did not immediately notice the bird that thoughtfully tilted its head and watched her through the dusty glass. When she quietly left, covering the sorcerer with a thin veil, he was already asleep.

“An amazing story,” Regis’s voice said softly, followed by himself, emerging from the alleyway in the middle of Katarina’s path that was returning to the waxing shop, even though that was the last thing she wanted. But there was nowhere else to go.

“Every story in this world is amazing,” she said gloomily, looking sideways at the familiar, slightly worn sleeve, which in an unprecedented way plunged her into serene calmness. "Do you believe what you heard, Regis?"

“In any case, I don't see any contradictions.”

“To the druid’s circle, to the curse, to the fact that people drank human blood?”

They reached the stone stairs, and Regis graciously extended his hand to help Katarina down.

“All these facts happened in different time periods and may well be related to each other,” he said. “Or maybe not. One thing that confuses me most about the words of the sorcerer is that the curse tends to invade new areas. Albeit very slowly. This means that something provokes it - either the presence of Dettlaff, or something else.”

The stairs ended, but Regis did not take his hand away, and Katarina persuaded herself that if she pulled away again, it would look extremely impolite.

“Or it stopped working. Regis…” she raised her eyes to the cloudless sky, and the still unasked question seemed to her blasphemous, but she could not but ask it. "Is it true that vampires tried to enslave the human race?"

“Some of us,” Regis said calmly. “They were wrong and paid for it. I'm not old enough to have seen those times, but some old legends said something like that…” He stopped short.

“How old are you?” Katarina asked immediately, glancing at Regis, who could not help but hear Dragorn's last words. “Probably... a hundred years?”

“Do I look that bad?” He chuckled with a touch of bitterness.

“No. You look barely forty-five, if not for your hair. But I calculated the possible age of Covinarius and…”

She closed her mouth abruptly when she saw a familiar, slightly hunched figure at the gate of the shop. Dettlaff poured a handful of coins into his purse as a cheerful little girl flew up the street with a figurine of a Viking dressed in a dress. Katarina watched her slender, bare wrists and ankles go.

“You!” She exclaimed and, under the amazed gazes of two vampires, suddenly jumped up to Dettlaff. “You drink human blood!” Her voice dropped to a whistling whisper, but did not become less angry from that.

“I was compelled,” Dettlaff said sparingly, looking at the angry girl with some suspicion. “I needed to recuperate, and I resorted to at least.”

“Murderer!”

“You don’t have to kill the one whose blood you are taking. It was a long time ago. Even before the arrival to the city.”

“Dastardly thief,” Katarina shook her head in anger. “You came to this world as a guest and steal someone else's blood without asking. Isn't that mean?”

“Katarina,” Regis stepped forward cautiously. “I understand your indignation, but Dettlaff really hasn't drunk blood in a long time. I feel tha…”

“I don’t believe it!”

“Regis, we should talk,” Dettlaff said slowly, without a trace of anger, examining Katarina. “You should go inside. It's too hot in here. You will have heatstroke.”

Dettlaff's impeccably calm tone and magic miraculously cooled Katarina's ardor, and she, with a final snort, disappeared into the cool maw of the two-story house.

“She’s changing more and more every day,” Dettlaff remarked a little later, when they walked away from the house up the street, stopping at a spreading hazel tree. “I never thought she was Melitele's lamb, but her behavior is unreasonable. She found out who I was, moreover, she saw me, and her first reaction was aggression and a desire to teach me life?”

“Wasn't that how Syanna won you over?”

“Oh, you learned to offend sarcastically,” Dettlaff grunted, twitching his lip, and added more sharply than necessary: “I'm going there today. To the fortress. Stara Knezha.”

Regis narrowed his eyes, casually glancing into the distance, at the hills, above which the ruined tower of the old building barely was seen. They let the cloth cart pass by and retreated another step from the main street.

“I can keep you company, my friend.” Regis looked thoughtfully at Dettlaff. “Of course, this is not an idle proposal, but an insistent request. Are you definitely sure that what is happening is the work of the same sorcerer?”

“It’s not Dragorn if you’re leading to it. I remember his smell. He got scared when he saw us.”

“Nonetheless…”

“However, I do not believe in coincidences, Regis. Neunreuth, Stara Knezha, dark magic, another sorcerer. And all this - after I called the hunt in Beauclair.”

“In that case, let's go now. Let's not waste time and wait for the night.”


End file.
